Professional Negligence, Solicitors: Recent Case Law, 2014

In preparation for this talk I have reviewed cases of interest in the High Courts and Courts of Appeal of England and Wales and Northern Ireland from the past two years or so on professional negligence and liability and principally relating to solicitors.

There are six topics of interest: the general duty of care demanded of solicitors in the carrying out of their professional obligations; whether there is a specific duty on a solicitor to warn or advise a client of any implied risk in, say, a commercial transaction; what is the scope of the duty on a solicitor to explain the content of or clauses in a legal document; a recent case of interest applying the White v Jones principle to a disappointed beneficiary seeking to make a claim against a solicitor who negligently prepared a will; the practical, limitation issue of how to pinpoint in a professional negligence claim when the damage was first sustained by the claimant; and finally some case law here and in England and Wales on the (costs) implications for solicitors relating to any failure to adhere to case management protocols or related court directions.

Avoiding Negligence and Profusion: The failure of the Joint-Stock form in the Anglo-Indian Tea Trade, 1840-1870

In the 19th century, firms operating in the Anglo-Indian tea trade were organised using a variety ownership forms including the partnership, joint-stock and a combination of the two known as the Managing agency. Faced with both an increasing need for fixed capital and high agency costs caused by the distance between owners and managers, the firms adapted and increasingly adopted the hybrid managing agency model to overcome these problems. Using new data from Calcutta and Bengal Commercial Registers and detailed case studies of the Assam Company and Gillanders, Arbuthnot and Co, this paper demonstrates that British entrepreneurs did not see the choice of ownership as a dichotomy or firm boundaries as fixed, but instead innovatively drew on the strengths of different forms of ownership to compete and grow successfully.

The vulnerable subject of negligence law

The approach taken by English courts to the duty of care question in negligence has been subject to harsh criticism in recent years. This article examines this fundamental issue in tort law, drawing upon Canadian and Australian jurisprudence by way of comparison. From this analysis, the concept of vulnerability is developed as a productive means of understanding the duty of care. Vulnerability is of increasing interest in legal and political theory and it is of particular relevance to the law of negligence. In addition to aiding doctrinal coherence, vulnerability – with its focus on relationships and care – has the potential to broaden the way in which the subject of tort law is conceived because it challenges dominant assumptions about autonomy as being prior to the relationships on which it is dependent.

Sir George Jessel [Illustration] : Solicitor-General und Master of the Rolls, (geb. 1824, gest. 1883)

Scan von Monochrom-Mikroform

Varying Injurer Costs of Care, Negligence, and Self-Selection

Standard economic models of negligence set a single standard of care to which all injurers must conform. When injurers differ in their costs of care, this leads to distortions in individual care choices. This paper derives the characteristics of a negligence rule that induces optimal care by all injurers by means of self-selection. The principal features of the rule are (1) the due standard is set at the optimal care of the lowest cost injurer, and (2) liability increases gradually rather than abruptly as care falls below this standard. The results are consistent with the gradation in liability under certain causation rules and under comparative negligence.

Thoughts upon the lawfulness and expediency of church establishments : and suggestions for the appropriation of the Clergy Reserves in Upper Canada as far as respects and Church of England in a letter to C.A. Hagerman, Esq., M.P., solicitor general of Upper Canada /

Includes bibliographical references.

Principles of the law of negligence /

Includes bibliographical references and index.

American negligence cases a complete collection of all reported negligence cases decided in the United States Supreme Court, the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, all the United States circuit and district courts, and the courts of last resort of all the states and territories, from the earliest times, with selections from the intermediate courts. [1789-1897] Topically arranged, with notes of English cases and annotations.

Editors: v. 1-10, T. F. Hamilton--v. 11-16, W. J. Eagle--v. 17, Publisher's editorial staff.

American negligence digest, from the earliest time to 1902 : a digest of all the decisions contained in the American negligence cases and the American negligence reports /

Mode of access: Internet.

Review of the joint stock bank acts, and of the law as to joint stock companies generally: with the practical suggestions of a solicitor for their amendment; in a letter to the Right Honourable the chancellor of the exchequer.

Mode of access: Internet.