13 - Rise of Modern Law of Torts

Abstract

This chapter highlights the rise of modern law of torts. In the field of tort, it is important to remember that the sequence of events, the early appearance of trespass vi et armis and the later rise of actions on the case, was governed by jurisdiction. Local courts in the early 14th century had a law of wrongs that protected all the ordinary interests of life. In the common law, the initial unconcern with any wrongs except those affecting the king introduced an artificiality, which, not unlike the seal in covenant, affected all later development. The rise of the modern law of torts was not the creation of something new but the restoration of a lost simplicity. In local jurisdictions, it is clear that cheating, inducing others into actions detrimental to themselves, was a perfectly familiar idea.