Tort Law

Tort Law on the Durham University LLB Law (Year 1). Civil wrongs and the compensation that follows them — above all the tort of negligence, but also nuisance, defamation and the rules on who bears the loss.

Negligence — duty of care (Caparo and after)

Duty of care is the law’s controlled gateway between moral blame and legal liability.

33 min

Psychiatric injury

Psychiatric harm exposes negligence’s sharpest tension between principled liability and controlled compensation.

35 min

Pure economic loss

Negligence protects some financial interests, but only through tightly controlled categories of responsibility.

31 min

Omissions and public authorities

Negligence rarely punishes inaction, but public functions do not confer a general immunity.

33 min

Breach of duty

Breach turns negligence from abstract duty into the disciplined measurement of unreasonable risk.

39 min

Causation — factual and legal

Causation fixes the defendant’s responsibility after breach, and often decides the value of negligence.

33 min

Remoteness of damage

Remoteness marks the boundary between factual causation and legally compensable loss.

39 min

Defences — contributory negligence, volenti, ex turpi

Three defences that convert claimant conduct, consent, and illegality into limits on tort liability.

42 min

Occupiers' liability

Occupiers’ liability translates control of premises into limited, statute-shaped responsibilities for physical safety.

38 min

Employers' liability and vicarious liability

Direct employer duties and vicarious attribution allocate workplace loss through distinct doctrinal routes.

34 min

Nuisance — private and public

Nuisance tests the boundary between ordinary living, property rights, and collective environmental harm.

36 min

Rylands v Fletcher

A narrow, land-based strict liability tort, now disciplined by nuisance and foreseeability.

35 min

Trespass to the person

Trespass protects bodily liberty through intention, directness, and actionable wrongs without proof of loss.

39 min

Defamation

Reputation, publication and free expression meet in a highly structured statutory tort.

39 min

Privacy and misuse of private information

Modern privacy law protects autonomy through a disciplined balance between confidentiality and expression.

42 min

Remedies in tort

Damages dominate tort remedies, but equitable and vindicatory responses define the harder cases.

31 min