Concurrent Causes of Action in the Rome I and II Regulations

Abstract

Most contemporary systems of private law distinguish between various regimes of responsibility. The main, although disputed, distinction is made between contractual and tort liability, albeit the categorisation usually goes far beyond that. A common lawyer would probably accept that a claim can be based on a contract, a tort, an equitable wrong or on restitution. On the other hand, a civil lawyer, or at least one who has some grasp of Roman law, would be more willing to concede that obligations can arise ex contractu, ex delicto, quasi ex contractu and quasi ex delicto. These differences notwithstanding, national legal orders that acknowledge multiple grounds for claims have to address the same issue, namely whether it is possible for a plaintiff to avail himself of different causes of action or whether the claim should be confined to one of them exclusively. There is no uniform solution to this problem as some systems accept the concurrence of different causes of action and other systems reject such a possibility.