Legal Development and Technological Change

These examples have been small snapshots of technological changes since about 1850. Obviously there have been many other technologies and many other risks, but these three throw light on more than enough complicated issues to begin with.

Many of these technologies became available across Europe at about the same time, though in differing concentrations, and yet very different legal solutions were found to sort out the problems.


For instance, it is particularly interesting how the traditional way a problem comes to light, through litigation, was note the case in Prussia. In fact, Prussian legislators expressly referred to the English experience, and used that to skip ahead and go straight to a legislative phase. It should be added that the resulting legislation was far more supportive of aggrieved landowners than the pro-industry settlements preceding the 1905 Railway Fires Act. On the other hand, the Prussia experience is very different in that legislation was possible. It could take decades for a known risk to be limited in even a minor way, as Parliaments across Europe weighed the individual harms possible against the benefits from the industry generating them.

It cannot be doubted that each of these three technological changes has had a direct impact on the development of the general law. Of course there have been some specialised court decisions and pieces of legislation, but there are much larger trends. Asbestos litigation is still a major driver of legal change even now in the UK for instance, and avoiding such litigation in France costs a significant sum every year (in the special compensation regime).