Helen Reece; Emmanuel Voyiakis; Charlie Webb.

This is an optional course for LLB and BA Anthropology and Law. Available as an outside option. Not available to General Course students.

Students must first have completed LL104 Law of Obligations.

The course examines a range of Torts, building on knowledge about the tort of negligence gained in the Law of Obligations course, but dealing also with several other discrete areas of the subject, as well as introducing theoretical perspectives on tort law.

(A) Duties of care; public authorities; pure economic loss; psychiatric injury; wrongful birth and life. (B) Interference with the person; assault; battery; the Wilkinson v Downton tort; harassment. (C) Defences: illegality (D) Causation: loss of chance; endangerment . (E) Theoretical perspectives: what is tort?; introduction to theories of tort; tort and private law; conceptions of responsibility and luck. (F) Strict liability regimes: vicarious liability; Rylands v Fletcher; defective products; theoretical perspectives on strict liability.

There will be one 1-hour lecture/seminar a week. Classes will be run along with the lectures.

At least two pieces of written work will be required.

General Texts: John Murphy and Christian Witting, Street on Torts (13th edn, 2012); W.V.T. Rogers, Winfield & Jolowicz on Tort (18th edn, 2010); Nicholas J. McBride & Roderick Bagshaw, Tort Law (3rd edn, 2008); B A Hepple, D Howarth & M H Matthews, Tort: Cases and Materials (6th edn, 2008); Simon Deakin, Angus Johnston & Basil Markesinis, Markesinis and Deakin's Tort Law (6th edn, 2007); John G Fleming, The Law of Torts (9th edn, 1998); Peter Cane, Atiyah's Accidents, Compensation and the Law (7th edn, 2006)

Introductory Texts: Vera Bermingham and Carol Brennan, Tort Law: Directions (3rd edn, 2012); John G. Fleming, An Introduction to the Law of Torts (2nd edn, 1985); Carol Harlow, Understanding Tort Law (3rd edn, 2005).

Specialist Texts: Harvey Teff, Causing Psychiatric and Emotional Harm: Reshaping the Boundaries of Legal Liability (2008); Allan Beaver, Rediscovering the Law of Negligence (2007); Nicolette Priaulx, The Harm Paradox: Tort Law and the Unwanted Child in an Era of Choice (2007); Robert Stevens, Torts and Rights (2007); Jules Coleman, Risks and Wrongs (2002); Gerald J. Postema, Philosophy and the Law of Torts (1998); David G. Owen, Philosophical Foundations of Tort Law (1997); Richard A Epstein, Theory of Strict Liability: toward a Reformulation of Tort Law (1979).

A three-hour (plus 15 minutes additional reading time) written examination in the ST.