Economic Negligence

This book looks at the negligence concept of tort law and studies the efficiency issue arising from the determination of negligence. It does so by scrutinizing actual court decisions from three common law jurisdictions – Britain, India and the United States of America. This volume fills a very significant gap, scrutinizing 52 landmark judgments from these three countries, by focussing on the negligent affliction of economic loss determined by common law courts and how these findings relate to the existing theoretical literature. By doing so, it examines the formalization of legal concepts in theory, primarily the question of negligence determination and liability, and their centrality in theories concerning tort law. This book will be very helpful for students, professors and practitioners of law, jurisprudence and legal theory. It will additionally be of use to researchers and academics interested in law and economics, procedure and legal history.

"This is the first book devoted solely to examining Canadian case authorities and the unique problems that arise from them. It also introduces a new innovative macro-organizational structure for understanding pure economic loss. In doing so, the book brings new insight, explanations, and ways of looking at this complicated subject area."--Publisher.

The previous editions of Torts were highly regarded for their clarity of explanation and engaging writing style, and this new fourth edition fully retains each of these qualities. The text has been extensively revised and updated, and there is a new chapter on privacy. The enhanced layout includes end of chapter summaries and self-test exercises and an extensive bibliography. This is therefore an ideal companion to the subject for both law undergraduates and GDL/CPE students.

Accident law, if properly designed, is capable of reducing the incidence of mishaps by making people act more cautiously. Scholarly writing on this branch of law traditionally has been concerned with examining the law for consistency with felt notions of right and duty. Since the 1960s, however, a group of legal scholars and economists have focused on identifying the effects of accident law on people's behavior. Steven Shavell's book is the definitive synthesis of research to date in this new field.