Comparative Tort Law
Cases, Materials, and Exercises

Comparative Tort Law promotes a ?learning by doing? approach to comparative tort law and comparative methodology. Each chapter starts with a case scenario followed by questions and expertly selected material, such as: legislation, extracts of case law, soft law principles, and (where appropriate) extracts of legal doctrine. Using this material, students are invited to:

? solve the proposed scenario according to the laws of several jurisdictions;

? compare the approaches and solutions they have identified;

? evaluate their respective pros and cons; and

? reflect upon the most appropriate approach and solution.

This book is essential reading for all students and scholars of comparative tort law and comparative law methodology and is the ideal companion for those wishing to both familiarise themselves with real-world materials and understand the many diverse approaches to modern tort law.

Preface

Acknowledgements

Translations

List of abbreviations

PART A Introduction

Chapter 1 Tort law in the 21st century – the purpose of this book

Chapter 2 A case-oriented and multilateral approach to the teaching, studying, and learning of comparative law: the approach used in this book

Chapter 3 Is it legitimate and beneficial for judges to compare?

Chapter 4 The Principles of European Tort Law – a brief introduction and analysis

PART B Case studies

Chapter 5 Conditions and limits of extra-contractual liability – cable cases

Chapter 6 Fault-based liability and the required standard of care: the case of damage caused by minors

Chapter 7 Fault-based liability in action: challenges of establishing fault (and alternative regimes) – the example of sports accidents

Chapter 8 Liability without fault – a ruptured water main: casum sentit dominus?

Chapter 9 Most common cases: traffic accidents

Chapter 10 Liability in cases of uncertain causation – "all or nothing" or partial compensation in relation to the probability of causation?

Chapter 11 Damage suffered by secondary victims: the case of psychiatric injury, "nervous shock", or "post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)" following the loss or severe injury of a loved one

Chapter 12 Damage suffered by secondary victims: damages for pure emotional harm following the loss or severe injury of a loved one

Chapter 13 Liability for others – the case of liability of parents for damage caused by their children

Chapter 14 Pure economic loss: the case of liability for wrongful information and advice

Chapter 15 Protection of privacy and the purposes of tort law

Chapter 16 Damage to public goods: the case of damage to the environment, pure ecological damage in particular

Chapter 17 Comparative tort litigation – an introduction, with a focus on the costs of lawsuits

Chapter 18 Cross-border torts: coordinating legal diversity through Private International Law – an introduction

Chapter 19 Epilogue: tort law in context – and potential alternatives to tort liability

Table of codal and statutory provisions

Index

Thomas KADNER GRAZIANO is Professor of Law at the University of Geneva and visiting professor at KU Leuven. He holds a doctoral degree from Goethe-University Frankfurt, an LLM degree from Harvard Law School, and a professorial degree from Humboldt-University of Berlin. He was a faculty member of the DUKE-Geneva Institute in Transnational Law (2004, 2010) and has held visiting professorships, teaching comparative law at the Universities of Potsdam (1997), Poitiers (2006), Florida (1996, 2006–10), Exeter (2007–08), Kaunas (2009, 2013, 2014), Vilnius (2014), Lausanne (2015), KU Leuven (since 2015), and Renmin (People’s) University of China (Beijing and Suzhou, 2016), and has taught seminars in comparative law at the Universities of Johannesburg (2015) and Luxembourg (since 2016). He is Fellow of the European Centre of Tort and Insurance Law (ECTIL), Vienna, and has acted as an expert on comparative law and comparative private international law, including for the European Parliament and in international proceedings before the UN Security Council’s Compensation Commission.