Thoroughly revised and updated, this authoritative casebook adopts a critical and analytical approach to the law of torts. The extensive commentary is supplemented by a wealth of additional material including extracts from cases and legislation and comprehensive citation of academic writings. Challenging questions and detailed notes will help both students and practitioners to understand the significance of the cases and other materials.
New to This Edition:
· Discussion and analysis of the impact of recent tort law reform legislation.
· New cases including the landmark decision of the High Court in Leichardt Municipal Council v Montgomery on the question of how to determine whether or not a "non-delegable duty of care" exists and Kuru v State of NSW.
· Revised and enhanced discussion of women, tort law and feminist theory.
· Increased attention to current and emerging issues in the use of trespass and related actions in the context of domestic violence, sexual abuse, harassment, medico-legal issues, the State and defining civil liberties and privacy.
· Many additional references to academic literature.
Important Features:
· Numerous recent cases, new article references, and analysis of the impact of recent tort law reform legislation.
· Fully revised with new material integrated and obsolete material removed ensuring manageable size.
· Larger format to enhance ease of navigation.
Reviews:
A tort is a civil wrong. Right? Wrong - well, not entirely wrong, but not entirely right. If you want a full and detailed explanation of the concept of a tort, you could do no better than to turn to Chapter 1.4.13 of Luntz and Hambly's latest edition of their text, Torts: Cases and Commentary, where you will find that in SB v State of NSW (2004), Redlich J cited a caution by Cardozo CJ in a 1928 American case as to the 'shifting meanings' of words such as 'wrong', and that arguments based upon them 'share their instability'. You may be surprised, moreover, to learn, at 1.4.14, that certain conduct that is punishable criminally does not necessarily give rise to a civil action.
Before turning to that chapter, however, it is worth reading the preface, in which the authors set out their credo, which includes encouraging a critical approach to the study of torts and providing readers with the material necessary to make their own assessment of the adequacy of the law in meeting the needs of a rapidly changing society. In that context, the preface also refers to the authors' recognition of the increasing role of legislation in tort law, and the problems that the new tort reform legislation, enacted in all . If you were raised (as I was) on Fleming's text on torts and Morisons' casebook, with the need to carry both and shift from time to time between the two, you will find Luntz and Hambly's text a most convenient combination of exposition, comment and extracts from leading cases.
The full ambit of the current law of torts is covered in the 898 pages, divided neatly into a useful taxonomy that is already broadly familiar to practising lawyers and necessary for students to come to grips with.
Vexed questions such as Necessity, Remoteness of Damage, Vicarious Liability and Concurrent Liability are covered under separate headings and cross referenced as appropriate to others - easing the task of locating all relevant references via the index. Indeed, cross referencing generally is a most welcome feature of this book. Relevant Questions (which, incidentally, might arise in an examination) and Notes respectively help focus the mind on essential aspects, and expatiate upon and clarify complex propositions. In the same vein, the examples are current, making a substantial leap from a snail in a ginger beer bottle in Scotland to LCD television screens.
All of a lawyer's old friends are there: eg Donoghue v Stephenson; Grant v Australian Knitting Mills Ltd; Rylands v Fletcher; Hedley Byrne; as well as many other new acquaintances, inevitably soon to become close friends, that have been, in the authors' words 'grafted on to the stem of the law of torts ? (or) treated as planted in soil of (their) own'. These include: the emergent question of teachers' duty of care towards their pupils, and the boundaries, temporal and linear, of that duty; and the intriguing and important relationship between gender, tort law and feminist legal theory.
The 1966 film about the 15-16th century lawyer Sir Thomas More was aptly entitled: A Man for All Seasons. This highly accessible and deftly written text may fairly be described as a text for all lawyers, whether now in practice or studying with a view to doing so.
April 2009
Fergus Thomson
Barrister
Silk Chambers Canberra
