Some Rule-of-Law Anxieties About Strict Liability in Private Law

Abstract

This paper deals with the place of the ideal of the rule of law in evaluating doctrines of private law, especially the law of torts. The issue is played out in some debates about strict tort liability. I discuss some objections to strict tort liability that treat such liability, or certain explanations of such liability, as obectionable on rule-of-law grounds. I find them inconclusive. In particular I argue that those who interpret strict tort liability as a way of attaching costs to actitivites do not thereby cast any doubt on the view that strict tort liability is strict liability for torts, i.e. for legal wrongs.