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There is generally no [[concurrent liability]], for example, in [[contract]] and [[tort]], because they are the yin and yang of civil liabilities: [[tort]] is the system of rights and obligations that are presumed to exist between otherwise unconnected souls whose existences happen to interfere with each other — who are “[[Neighbour|neighbours]]”, in Lord Atkin’s well-oiled phrase, but not “[[Counterparty|lovers]]” (in mine) — people who haven’t directly agreed what the rights and obligations between them should be. | There is generally no [[concurrent liability]], for example, in [[contract]] and [[tort]], because they are the yin and yang of civil liabilities: [[tort]] is the system of rights and obligations that are presumed to exist between otherwise unconnected souls whose existences happen to interfere with each other — who are “[[Neighbour|neighbours]]”, in Lord Atkin’s well-oiled phrase, but not “[[Counterparty|lovers]]” (in mine) — people who haven’t directly agreed what the rights and obligations between them should be. | ||
[[Tort]] is the business of describing the elusive point at which strangers become [[neighbour|neighbour]]s, and articulating a practical public morality between them of the sort that hateful [[Man on the Clapham Omnibus|fellow on the Clapham Omnibus]] might contrive. Those presumptive, “when all else fails” rules fall away when [[neighbours]] become intimate enough to agree specific bilateral rules of engagement between them. Then they are contracting [[Counterparty|counterparties]], and those specific rights and duties they have worked out for themselves — their contractual obligations — override the general principles that tort would otherwise apply. | [[Tort]] is the business of describing the elusive point at which strangers become [[neighbour|neighbour]]s, and articulating a practical public morality between them of the sort that hateful [[Man on the Clapham Omnibus|fellow on the Clapham Omnibus]] might contrive. Those presumptive, “when all else fails” rules fall away when [[neighbours]] become intimate enough to agree specific bilateral rules of engagement between them. Then they are contracting [[Counterparty|counterparties]], and those specific rights and duties they have worked out for themselves — their contractual obligations — override the general principles that tort would otherwise apply. It is true that a tortious relationship will pre exist a contractual one — it is hard to get close enough to someone else to engage in intimate contractual relations with them without becoming neighbours first — but seeing as the very point of a contract is to dispell all those uncertainties, it seems to me contractual obligations are, at their essence, intended to dispel tortious ones. | ||
So if I have, in full possession of my senses, agreed to do something unreasonable or stupid, and you, in yours, have agreed to pay for it, I cannot appeal to rules derived from [[Donoghue v Stevenson - Case Note|misadventures with gifted ginger beer]], [[Ferae naturae|escaping wild animals]] and [[Miller v Jackson - Case Note|mis-hit cricket balls]] to excuse my commitment. | |||
Now construction lawyers will jump up and down and say “but what about {{casenote|Henderson|Merrett}}?” and they will have some colour of justification for doing so — see [[concurrent liability]] for more — but none of this really impinges on financial contracts, and quietly I’m not sure there is genuine concurrence, even there. | |||
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*[[Concurrent liability]] | *[[Concurrent liability]] |