Essential Cases: Tort Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. Essential Cases provides you with succinct summaries of some of the landmark and most influential cases in tort law. Each summary begins with a review of the main case facts and decision. The summary is then concluded with expert commentary on the case from the author, Craig Purshouse, including his assessment of the wider questions raised by the decision.
Book
Craig Purshouse
Essential Cases: Tort Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. Essential Cases provides you with succinct summaries of some of the landmark and most influential cases in tort law. Each summary begins with a review of the main case facts and decision. The summary is then concluded with expert commentary on the case from the author, Craig Purshouse, including his assessment of the wider questions raised by the decision.
Chapter
This chapter considers the burdens borne by both parties when an issue of fact is at stake. It explains how the nature of a burden in the law of evidence is obscured by the use of the term in a number of different senses. The two principal senses are the burden of adducing evidence and the burden of proving facts. In relation to each, questions arise as to its incidence and discharge. The chapter considers the allocation of the burden in these two senses, at common law and under statutory provisions, and the effects of presumptions of law or agreement of the parties. Finally, this chapter is concerned with the extent of the two burdens, and the way in which the burden of proof has to be explained to the jury.
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This chapter deals with the issue of facts in a legal case. Effective litigation requires close attention to establishing and analysing the facts relevant to a case, and an ability to understand and address the problems that dealing with facts can present. It is a vital function of the lawyer to be proactive in gathering, sifting, proving, and presenting the facts. The chapter discusses the challenges of establishing truth and ways to address problems with facts; establishing facts; the stages at which factual information is likely to become available (e.g. the first meeting between the lawyer and the client or following pre-action exchange of information); managing and analyzing facts; identifying and dealing with those gaps in facts; and the interaction of facts and law. The final section explains how to build a factual framework for a case.
Chapter
Evidence is information by which facts tend to be proved, and the law of evidence is that body of law and discretion regulating the means by which facts may be proved in both courts of law and tribunals and arbitrations in which the strict rules of evidence apply. This introductory chapter discusses truth and the fact-finding process and explains how getting to the truth in court is hampered by practical constraints, the adversarial system, the rules of evidence themselves, and the fact that litigation is a human endeavour that necessarily provides scope for differences of opinion, error, deceit, and lies. The chapter also contains a brief history of the development of the law to date.
Chapter
This chapter discusses the admissibility of evidence of character. A number of factors govern the admissibility of character evidence, including whether the proceedings are civil or criminal and whether the evidence relates to the character of a party or non-party. It is also necessary to consider the nature of the character evidence in question. It may relate to either good or bad character and, in either event, may constitute evidence of a person’s actual disposition, that is his propensity to act, think, or feel in a given way; or evidence of his reputation, that is his reputed disposition or propensity to act, think, or feel in a given way. Thus, the character of a person may be proved by evidence of general disposition, by evidence of specific examples of his conduct on other occasions (including, in the case of bad conduct, evidence of his previous convictions), or by evidence of his reputation among those to whom he is known. The chapter considers civil cases in which bad character designated ‘similar fact evidence’ has been admitted
Chapter
This chapter discusses the following: the basic terminology of the law of evidence and the often inconsistent use of these terms; the terminology of the qualities of evidence, including the difference between direct and circumstantial evidence; hearsay evidence; documentary evidence (both primary and secondary); real evidence, including material objects, demeanour, appearance, and views of the locus in quo; the terminology of the form of evidence (oral, documentary and real evidence); the terminology of facts to be proved; facts in issue; facts forming part of the res gestae; facts relevant to facts in issue; standards of comparison; and the terminology of admissibility and weight.
Chapter
Evidence is information by which facts tend to be proved, and the law of evidence is that body of law and discretion regulating the means by which facts may be proved in both courts of law and tribunals and arbitrations in which the strict rules of evidence apply. This introductory chapter discusses truth and the fact-finding process and explains how getting to the truth in court is hampered by practical constraints, the adversarial system, the rules of evidence themselves, and the fact that litigation is a human endeavour that necessarily provides scope for differences of opinion, error, deceit, and lies. The chapter also contains a brief history of the development of the law to date.
Chapter
This chapter discusses the admissibility of evidence of character. A number of factors govern the admissibility of character evidence, including whether the proceedings are civil or criminal and whether the evidence relates to the character of a party or non-party. It is also necessary to consider the nature of the character evidence in question. It may relate to either good or bad character and, in either event, may constitute evidence of a person’s actual disposition, that is his propensity to act, think, or feel in a given way; or evidence of his reputation, that is his reputed disposition or propensity to act, think, or feel in a given way. Thus, the character of a person may be proved by evidence of general disposition, by evidence of specific examples of his conduct on other occasions (including, in the case of bad conduct, evidence of his previous convictions), or by evidence of his reputation among those to whom he is known. The chapter considers civil cases in which bad character designated ‘similar fact evidence’ has been admitted.
Book
Jonathan Herring
Essential Cases: Criminal Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. Essential Cases provides you with succinct summaries of some of the landmark and most influential cases in criminal law. Each summary begins with a review of the main case facts and decision. The summary is then concluded with expert commentary on the case from the author, Jonathan Herring, including his assessment of the wider questions raised by the decision.
Book
Noreen O'Meara
Essential Cases: EU Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. Essential Cases provides you with succinct summaries of some of the landmark and most influential cases in EU law. Each summary begins with a review of the main case facts and decision. The summary is then concluded with expert commentary on the case from the author, Noreen O’Meara., including her assessment of the wider questions raised by the decision.
Book
Nicola Jackson
Essential Cases: Contract Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. Essential Cases provides you with succinct summaries of some of the landmark and most influential cases in contract law. Each summary begins with a review of the main case facts and decision. The summary is then concluded with expert commentary on the case from the author, Nicola Jackson, including an assessment of the wider questions raised by the decision.
It can act as a succinct reference source alongside your core textbooks as you proceed through your course. It can also be used as a stand-alone revision aid as you approach examinations. But central to the Essential Cases series is the aim to encourage your own critical exploration of the legal matters under discussion.
Where possible, a link to a free-to-access full version of the judgment is included in each summary, providing you with an opportunity to deepen your understanding by reading the judgment of the court for yourself.
Book
Aruna Nair
Essential Cases: Land Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. Essential Cases provides you with succinct summaries of some of the landmark and most influential cases in land law. Each summary begins with a review of the main case facts and decisions. The summary is then concluded with expert commentary on the case from the author, Aruna Nair, including her assessment of the wider questions raised by the decision.
Book
Jonathan Herring
Essential Cases: Criminal Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. Essential Cases provides you with succinct summaries of some of the landmark and most influential cases in criminal law. Each summary begins with a review of the main case facts and decision. The summary is then concluded with expert commentary on the case from the author, Jonathan Herring, including his assessment of the wider questions raised by the decision.
Book
Nicola Jackson
Essential Cases: Contract Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. Essential Cases provides you with succinct summaries of some of the landmark and most influential cases in contract law. Each summary begins with a review of the main case facts and decision. The summary is then concluded with expert commentary on the case from the author, Nicola Jackson, including an assessment of the wider questions raised by the decision.
It can act as a succinct reference source alongside your core textbooks as you proceed through your course. It can also be used as a stand-alone revision aid as you approach examinations. But central to the Essential Cases series is the aim to encourage your own critical exploration of the legal matters under discussion.
Where possible, a link to a free-to-access full version of the judgment is included in each summary, providing you with an opportunity to deepen your understanding by reading the judgment of the court for yourself.
Book
Noreen O'Meara
Essential Cases: EU Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. Essential Cases provides you with succinct summaries of some of the landmark and most influential cases in EU law. Each summary begins with a review of the main case facts and decision. The summary is then concluded with expert commentary on the case from the author, Noreen O’Meara., including her assessment of the wider questions raised by the decision.
Book
Aruna Nair
Essential Cases: Land Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. Essential Cases provides you with succinct summaries of some of the landmark and most influential cases in land law. Each summary begins with a review of the main case facts and decisions. The summary is then concluded with expert commentary on the case from the author, Aruna Nair, including her assessment of the wider questions raised by the decision.
Chapter
Scott Slorach, Judith Embley, Peter Goodchild, and Catherine Shephard
This chapter first explains how to deal with problem-solving questions set for students on undergraduate law programmes. This includes consideration of the IRAC model and how to identify the relevant issues, apply the relevant law to the facts, identify a remedy, draw a clear conclusion, and structure and communicate an answer effectively. It then explores the practicalities for lawyers when problem-solving in practice, such as: effective case and matter analysis, clients providing insufficient or too much information, taking account of clients’ personal and commercial objectives, and considering other stakeholders’ interests. Next, the chapter considers in more detail the conclusion of problem-solving in practice: identifying options and advising the client.
Chapter
The aim of this chapter is to emphasise that legal analysis is not just a question of comparing facts or using a set of balancing scales to see if the facts weigh about the same. The situation is often much more complicated than that. This chapter discusses the following: the development of case law and why cases may be distinguished as well as applied on the material facts; defining ratio decidendi; perception and ratio; ratio and interpretation; obiter dictum; how precedents develop; answering legal questions on precedent; material facts; what can happen to a case; the postal rule cases; and the ‘uncertainty principle’ of cases.
Chapter
This chapter examines the law and practice on plea negotiation. After looking at the percentage of defendants who plead guilty, it then considers some of the principal reasons for changes of plea, looking at charge bargains (where the defendant agrees to plead guilty in exchange for the prosecution reducing the level of the charge or the number of charges); at fact bargains (where the defendant agrees to plead guilty only on the basis that the prosecution will put forward a particular version of the facts); and at plea negotiation (where the change of plea is motivated by considerations of sentence). The tendencies evident in the English system are then evaluated in the light of defendants’ rights and the supposed advantages to the public.
