Tort Law 5th Edition by Nicholas J. McBride

Tort Law 5th Edition by Nicholas J. McBrideISBN: 9781292071237?9781292071282 ?9781292071244Updating the fi ft h edition of this textbook did not require any radical changes to thestructure of this book (detailed in the Preface to the fourth edition, and reprinted overleaf)but a number of chapters had to be extensively rewritten to take account of recent developmentsin the law.Except in the fi eld of vicarious liability, an area of liability which grows ever larger andmore and more out of control, the general trend over the last three years or so has been infavour of making it harder for claimants to sue defendants in tort: the UK Supreme Court?srecent decision in Michael v Chief Constable of South Wales Police (2015) ? the third mostimportant decision on the law of negligence ever handed down by the UK?s highest court,aft er Donoghue v Stevenson (1932)and Hedley Byrne & Co Ltd v Heller & Partners (1964)? has put the kibosh on suggestions that public bodies should generally be liable for failuresto save people from harm where there would be no policy objection to such liabilityarising; the Court of Appeal?s decision in Stannard v Gore (2012) makes it even harder thanit was before for a claimant to sue a defendant under the rule in Rylands v Fletcher ; and theUK Supreme Court?s restatement of the law on private nuisance in Lawrence v Fen TigersLtd (2014) has the potential to make it harder for the victim of a private nuisance to obtainan injunction bringing the nuisance to an end. Parliament has also been busy trying(sometimes ineff ectively, sometimes eff ectively) to roll back the boundaries of tort law: therisibly titled Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Act 2015 seeks to give those whoseek to do good extra protection from being sued in negligence; the Defamation Act 2013attempts to make it harder for claimants to sue defendants in defamation though it goesnowhere near as far as its proponents would claim in changing the law; s 69 of theEnterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 does make it much harder for employees tosue their employers for compensation for injuries they have suff ered at work; and the LegalAid, Sentencing and Punishment of Off enders Act 2012 makes it harder for the worst offin society to get legal assistance to sue those who violate their rights. 1