ABSTRACT
Knowledge of the English law of tort cannot fully be encapsulated under the general headings used by the continental systems. Liability for individual acts (fault) and liability for people and things (strict liability) are not in themselves adequate ideas to express the full complexity of factual and remedial distinctions that find expression in the English law of non-contractual obligations. Even the addition of categories like liability for words and professional liability will not fully fill the gaps. This second chapter on non-contractual damages actions will, accordingly, look at some of the more general issues behind the law of tort and, like the last two chapters, its main focus of attention will be on obligations arising out of fact rather than out of promissory transaction. However, as we have seen, the distinction between legal acts and legal facts is unrealistic when it comes to the common law and so the chapter will also include some material relevant to contractual obligations. It is a chapter that looks, on occasions, more generally at damages actions in the common law.
