Justice in Private Law

Peter Jaffey

• Publisher: Hart Publishing
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781509953882
• eBook ISBN: 9781509953899
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Diritto
• Subtopic: Diritto contrattuale

This book discusses the dominant corrective justice and distributive justice approaches to private law and identifies their strengths and weaknesses. It goes on to propose a general approach to private law, including contract, tort and private property, and explains how it can provide solutions to some longstanding problems. Two general ideas inform this approach: the 'standpoint limitation' and 'remedial consistency'. The standpoint limitation explains the distinctive character of private law, that is to say why it is focussed mainly, though not exclusively, on particular individual interests rather than the common welfare. Remedial consistency explains the way in which remedies depend on and give effect to primary rights. The book also discusses the nature of common law legal reasoning and its relationship to the suggested understanding of private law.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Private Law Theory
• 3. Remedial Justice and the Structure of Private Law
• 4. The Distributive Justice Approach
• 5. The Corrective Justice Approach
• 6. Distributive Justice under the Standpoint Limitation
• 7. Negligence under the Standpoint Limitation
• 8. Contract Law under the Standpoint Limitation
• 9. Property Rights and Remedial Consistency
• 10. Private Property and the Standpoint Limitation
• 11. Legal Reasoning in the Common Law
• 12. How to Understand Private Law
• Index
• Copyright Page