Cornerstones of Tort Law

PREFACE / V

1 What Is a Tort? / 1
1.1 A Tort of European Dimensions / 1
1.2 Two Starting Points / 3
1.3 The General Personality Right / 5
1.4 Entitlement to the Peaceful Enjoyment of One’s Possessions / 8
1.5 Three Systems / 10
1.6 Du côté de chez Kant / 13
1.7 Three Manifestations; One Being / 14
1.8 The Value of the Law / 16
1.9 Negligence and Breach of Statutory Duty / 19
1.10 Violation of a Right / 20
1.11 Communicating Vessels / 21
1.12 Tortious Triptych / 23

2 Strict Liability / 25
2.1 Responsabilité sans faute, No Fault Liability, Gefährdungshaftung / 25
2.2 Two Types of Strict Liability / 30
2.3 Product Liability / 30
2.4 Development Risk / 36
2.5 Traffic Accidents and Environmental Damage; Liability or Insurance? / 37

3 Causality / 41
3.1 A Remarkable Incident at the Hotel De l’Europe / 41
3.2 Step One / 41
3.3 Step Two / 43
3.4 Prescriptive Implications of the Standards of Causality / 46
3.5 The Rationale of the ‘But For’ Test / 49
3.6 Loss of the Chance of Recovery / 50
3.7 Causation or Damage? / 51
3.8 Dual Definition of Chance / 52
3.9 Chance as Uncertainty Concerning a Certain Past / 55
3.10 Alternative Causality in European Product Liability Law? / 56
3.11 Different, Yet the Same / 61
3.12 Imputation According to Standards of Reasonableness / 62
3.13 Farewell to ‘What Is Reasonably to Be Expected’ as a Standard of Imputability? / 65
3.14 A Matter of Policy? / 67
3.15 Distributive Justice and Product Liability / 68
3.16 The Order of the Debate / 69
3.17 In Conclusion / 72

4 Concurrent Remedies / 75
4.1 Anspruchskonkurrenz, Concurrent Remedies, non-cumul des responsabilités / 75
4.2 Advantages and Disadvantages of the Different Systems / 77
4.3 Mixed Technique / 80

ABOUT THE AUTHOR / 85
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY / 87
ABBREVIATIONS / 89
TABLE OF CASES / 91
KEYWORD INDEX / 95