Mitchell, Paul --- "The modern history of tort remedies in England and Wales" [2019] ELECD 2289; in Halson, Roger; Campbell, David (eds), "Research Handbook on Remedies in Private Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) 33

Book Title: Research Handbook on Remedies in Private Law

Editor(s): Halson, Roger; Campbell, David

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Section: Chapter 3

Section Title: The modern history of tort remedies in England and Wales

Author(s): Mitchell, Paul

Number of pages: 13

Abstract/Description:

This chapter proposes that illuminating general insights into the history of tort remedies from the end of the nineteenth century to the present day can be obtained by paying attention to three interrelated and overarching themes. The first is the role of history in shaping, constraining, defining and - occasionally - suppressing modern developments in tort remedies. The second is the extraordinary significance of legal categories at multiple levels, ranging from the distinctions between different heads of damages to the distinctions between different torts and, ultimately, between tort and non-tort. These categories, the chapter emphasises, are not mere convenient repositories for organising information, they have invited and encouraged distinctive patterns of legal development. The third theme is the unresolved and ongoing conflict between tort law’s formal aspiration to rationalism and the instinctive attractions of certain kinds of irrationalism.