CPLC Seminar: 'Ascription of Responsibility and the Duty of Care in Negligence Law' / 'Disorder and Renewal in the Law of Product Liability: Consumer Autonomy and Moral Luck'

Speaker: Dr Haris Psarras, University of Cambridge: 'Ascription of Responsibility and the Duty of Care in Negligence Law'

In the course of arguments for the abandonment of the duty of care as a separate element of liability in negligence law, the status of the duty of care as a duty has also been denied. In response to these arguments, defences of the duty of care as an actual duty have chiefly proceeded on the basis that it is a legal duty. After overviewing key instances of this debate, this paper claims that the status of the duty of care as a duty can be better defended through calling attention to the fact that it is a moral duty with a specific function in establishing liability in negligence. This function is the ascription of responsibility to the defendant, such that, if it were not ascribed, the ascription of liability to her would ordinarily be morally arbitrary.

Speaker: Jacob Eisler, University of Cambridge: 'Disorder and Renewal in the Law of Product Liability: Consumer Autonomy and Moral Luck'

The new leading case regarding products liability under the Consumer Protection Act 1987 (Wilkes v. Depuy International) has reshaped that domain of tort law. It rejects the approach adopted by the previous leading case (A. v. National Blood Authority) and the principles underlying it, and substitutes a distinctly utilitarian treatment. In doing so Wilkes vindicates the fierce academic criticism directed against NBA, but its alternative approach elicits a criticism leveraged against the CPA from its inception: the CPA's definition of defect (the soul of a products liability suit) is circular or empty. This article offers a new interpretation of the true driver of the defect analysis under the CPA: consumer autonomy and argues that a moral luck enquiry offers the best test limiting for the strictness of products liability through respect of consumer autonomy.

This seminar is open to all LLM, MCL and PhD students, Faculty members and Faculty visitors.