Full Description
The focus of the essays in this book is on the relationship between compensation culture, social values and tort damages for personal injuries. A central concern of the public and political perception of personal injuries claims is the high cost of tort claims to society, reflected in insurance premiums, often accompanied by an assumption that tort law and practice is flawed and improperly raising such costs. The aims of this collection are to first clarify the relationship between tort damages for personal injuries and the social values that the law seeks to reflect and to balance, then to critically assess tort reforms, including both proposals for reform and actual implemented reforms, in light of how they advance or hinder those values. Reforms of substantive and procedural law in respect of personal injury damages are analysed, with perspectives from England and Wales, Canada, Australia, Ireland and continental Europe. The essays offer valuable insights to anyone interested in the reform of tort law or the tort process in respect of personal injuries.
Contents
Part I: General Features of the Relationship between
Damages and Compensation Culture
1. 'The Whiplash Capital of the World': Genealogy of a Compensation Myth
Ken Oliphant
2. Structural Factors Affecting the Number and Cost of Personal Injury Claims in the Tort System
Richard Lewis
3. A Reflexive Approach to Accident Law Reform
Erik S Knutsen
Part II: Damages Reform in Various Jurisdictions
4. Reforming English Tort Law: Lessons from Australia
James Goudkamp
5. Non-Pecuniary Damages for Personal Injury: A Reflection on the Canadian Experience
Jeff Berryman
6. Identifying and Calculating Personal Injury Damages in Ireland, Italy, France and Belgium: Recent Debates between Scholars, Judges and Practitioners
Denise Amram
Part III: The Process for Delivery of Damages
7. Deconstructing Policy on Costs and the Compensation Culture
Annette Morris
8. Personal Injuries Assessment Board: A Decade of Delivery?
Dorothea Dowling
9. An Overview of the Role of Medical Panels in Victorian Legislation
Dr Carol A Newlands
Part IV: Compensation and Personal Responsibility
10. Concurrent Fault at 90: A History of Ontario's Negligence Act and Canada's Uniform Contributory Fault Act
John C Kleefeld
11. Individualism and Autonomy in Occupiers' Liability and Compensation Culture
Desmond Ryan
12. Compensation Culture and Sport
Tim O'Connor
