"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."

I think this way of putting it obscures the distinctiveness of your position.  On your view, there is no duty to take care but rather a duty not to injure carelessly.  So, if I am a ginger beer manufacturer or if I am about to go for a drive and I want to know whether the law requires me to take care when doing these things, your answer would have to be “no” – or perhaps “no, unless it later turns out that by acting carelessly someone ended up injured”.  And I don’t think either answer tells us all we need to know about how to behave.

I take your example about the car crash, but the fact that the uninjured parties have no claims does not necessitate the conclusion that they were not wronged.

Charlie.

-----Original Message-----

From: Robert Stevens [mailto:robert.stevens@ucl.ac.uk]

Sent: Sun 1/24/2010 8:37 AM

To: Webb,CE

Cc: robert.stevens@ucl.ac.uk; rwright@kentlaw.edu; obligations@uwo.ca

Subject: RE: Duty, and Breaking Eggs

 

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

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