The York Research Database

The study of the law of tort is generally pre-occupied with case law, while the fundamental impact of legislation is often overlooked. At a jurisprudential level there is a view that legislation is generally piecemeal and at best self-contained and specific; at worst dependent on the whim of political views at a particular time. With a different starting point, this volume seeks to displace such notions, showing, among other things, that tort legislation is sometimes the work of political consensus, that there are clear threads of continuity in legislative action in some areas of tort law, and that some of the same threads can be seen in other jurisdictions. Legislation may also embody underlying themes or principles. Therefore, to describe the principles of tort law without referring to statute is potentially highly misleading. This book shows that legislation is not only important because of the way it varies or replaces case law, but that it deeply influences the intrinsic character of that law, providing some of its most familar characteristics.