From: Summers,AD <A.D.Summers@lse.ac.uk>
To: Robert Stevens <robert.stevens@law.ox.ac.uk>
Peter Radan <peter.radan@mq.edu.au>
obligations@uwo.ca
Date: 07/11/2017 12:41:37 UTC
Subject: RE: Misconstrued Cases

How about Victoria Laundry - Asquith LJ’s comments on the headnote in Hadley v Baxendale?

 

Niranjan Venkatesan has written about this in his chapter on remoteness in our Defences in Contract collection, and Victor Goldberg (I think a member of this list?) has also recently written something on it.

 

Best wishes,

Andy

 

 

 

From: Robert Stevens [mailto:robert.stevens@law.ox.ac.uk]
Sent: 07 November 2017 12:28
To: Peter Radan <peter.radan@mq.edu.au>; obligations@uwo.ca
Subject: RE: Misconstrued Cases

 

I wonder if you might be referring to Stilk v Myrick, and the different reports of what Lord Ellenborough said? Discussed here

 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-121X.1999.tb00638.x/epdf


From: Peter Radan [peter.radan@mq.edu.au]
Sent: 07 November 2017 00:56
To: obligations@uwo.ca
Subject: Misconstrued Cases

Colleagues,

 

When in law school - decades ago - I call a professor referring to a case which had come to stand for authority for a legal principle, even though the decision itself did not expound such a principle. Apparently, later cases referred to an incorrect headnote in the report of the case as the principle that emerged from it.

 

I cannot recall the case (or the principle), but would be obliged if anyone can refer me to it - and thereby confirm that I still have a functioning memory. I would also be interested in knowing of any other instances where a case has become authority for a rule or principle which it did not state or declare.

 

Many thanks,

 

Peter Radan

 

Peter Radan FAAL

Professor of Law

 

Macquarie Law School  |   Level 5, W3A Building (Room 527) Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia

 

T: +61 2 9850 7091  |  F: +61 2 9850 9686 

E: peter.radan@mq.edu.au