Chrlie asks:

> But on your view can anyone ever obtain an injunction restraining

> another from engaging in unreasonable conduct (absent some undertaking to

> take care)?  No doubt, as you say, I don’t need to show that you’ve

> already committed a wrong (breached a duty) to get an injunction, but

> don’t I have to show that I have a right that you act/refrain from acting

> in the way I demand?  If my right is that you not carelessly injure me,

> then I have no right that you take care without more.

Courts will grant injunctions to restrain conduct which if committed will

not, alone, constitute a wrong. They will do so for prophylactic reasons,

to prevent the possibility of a wrong. So, if I am an obsessed fan of Kate

Winslet the ourt, in order to stop my harrassing her, may order that I am

not to go within 500 meters of her house. That doesn't mean that, absent

the order, I would have been violating any right of Ms Winslet by going

near her house.

>

> More broadly, why wouldn’t we want to say that, at least in certain

> circumstances, I have a duty to you, there and then, to act carefully –

> that I am legally required to take care and not at liberty to act

> carelessly – when my actions run the risk of harming you?

>

I don't think it would be coherent for the law to say that each of us has

a right not to be injured and in addition that we have a right not to be

exposed to the risk of injury.

Say I am driving in my car with my wife and children. You, driving

negligently, crash into the car. I am injured but my wife and children

luckily escape. I can no longer work. All members of my family are worse

off, but who can sue? If we say, as I am quite certain is correct, that a

wrong is a breach of a duty owed to someone else,  only I can sue, because

only I have been injured. (I'll give some other examples in response to

Richard).

So, I am with John Goldberg in thinking there is a duty not to injure, but

think it is misleading to say that there is an additional duty to be

careful towards others simpliciter. Such a duty has no legal significance

within his account, I think. There is a duty to take care not to injure

other people, and that alone tells us all we need to know about how to

behave.

Rob

--

Robert Stevens

Professor of Commercial Law

University College London