Abstract

For at least the last 50 years two ways of looking at tort law have struggled for dominance. One characterized by system-builders, as Izhak Englard so felicitously termed us; the other by those who have seen in tort law the highest manifestation of the common law tradition of responding to breaches in non-criminal, often non-contractual interpersonal relationships. In this paper, I would like to explore the relationship between these two approaches, which I will suggest, find their common law antecedents, where else but, in the forms of actions, from which so much of modern Anglo-American private law derives. I will suggest that both approaches have always been there and that they have affected and shaped each other over the centuries and continue to do so today.

Recommended Citation

Calabresi, Guido (2007) "Toward A Unified Theory of Torts," Journal of Tort Law: Vol. 1 : Iss. 3, Article 1.
Available at: http://www.bepress.com/jtl/vol1/iss3/art1