Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 22:22:42

From: Andrew Tettenborn

Subject: Remoteness in Intentional Torts

"Intentional torts" can mean 2 things: (a) all torts apart from negligence, Rylands v Fletcher, etc, and (b) any tort in so far as it involves the deliberate wrongdoing, i.e. the defendant knowingly infringing the plaintiff's rights.

Assuming you mean (b), a couple of starting-points:

(1) Quinn v Leathem [1901] AC 495, 537 ("The intention to injure the plaintiff negatives all excuses and disposes of any question of remoteness of damage"): see too the economic tort case of Ansett v AFAP (No 2) [1991] 2 VR 636, 649, to the same effect. And hence the rule in deceit: as Denning says in Doyle v Olby [1969] 2 QB 158, it doesn't lie in a liar's mouth to say the consequences of deceit are too remote.

(2) Kuwait Airways v Iraqi Airways [2002] 2 A.C. 883, 1027 et seq. There Lord Nicholls, in the conversion context, says damage must be foreseeable if the conversion is not knowingly wrongful, direct if it is. This idea hasn't been extended elsewhere in tort yet, but no doubt it will be.

Where there's no element of outrageousness or deliberate wrongdoing, the assumption is generally that remoteness rules OK. See, e.g., Lynch v Knight (1861) 9 HLC 577 (defamation), Ministry of Defence v Cannock [1995] 2 AER 449 (discrimination); Boxfoldia [1988] IRLR 383, 388 (inducing breach of contract).

Andrew

>===== Original Message From Jason Neyers =====

Dear Colleagues:

On the theme of remoteness: Does anyone know of any interesting discussions, judicial or academic, of the remoteness rule/s for intentional torts?

Andrew Tettenborn
Bracton Professor of Law, University of Exeter, England

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