LAU44432 THE LAW AND THEORY OF OBLIGATIONS: TORT, CONTRACT, REMEDIES

Learning Outcomes

Having successfully completed this module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate specialised, self-directed knowledge of an area of law through examination of a ‘real-life’ legal research problem or a theme within a research group.
• Collaborate with peers and act in leadership roles.
• Constructively evaluate the work of others.
• Synthesise and evaluate a variety of legal research methods, legal sources, findings and analysis.
• Critically analyse an area of law through independent research.
• Consult with and respond to the needs of research users.
• Effectively communicate research findings.

Module Content

For the purposes of this capstone group, the “law of obligations” includes the law of tort, contract, and private law remedies (all broadly construed). Students are encouraged to research whatever aspects of the doctrine, theory, practice, or reform of these legal areas (or their overlap) they find most interesting. Projects might therefore range from close black-letter studies of particular doctrines, to more abstract theoretical treatments of the nature and justification of tort, contract, and the law of remedies in general.

Though students will thus largely chart their own course, the seminars throughout the year look to draw out general themes common to all group-members’ projects. In the first instance, they are designed to help students to situate their project within the law of obligations more generally. Secondarily, they look to draw out the connections between questions in the law of obligations and questions that occur persistently to all of us in our everyday lives, quite apart from the law. What do we owe to other people? Who has to pick up the pieces when things go awry? Who amongst us gets to make the rules, and why?

Indicatively, questions that might be examined include:

• Why is it wrong to defame? Is our current law of defamation compatible with the sustenance of robust debate on matters of public importance?
• What is the law on the tort of “causing loss by unlawful means” in this jurisdiction? What should it be?
• Under what conditions can P recover “vindicatory” damages for D’s private wrong, even though D’s wrong has caused P no loss? Was GE v Commissioner of An Garda Síochána [2022] IESC 51 rightly decided?
• What is the relationship between contract and promise? What should it be?
• What, if anything, justifies the doctrine of consideration?
• Is the law of contract sufficiently sensitive to imbalances of economic power between contracting parties?
• What are the implications for contract law of the decision in Braganza v BP Shipping Limited [2015] UKSC 17?
• What is distinctively private about private law? Is private law compatible with, or inimical to, distributive justice? Does private law suffer from a democratic deficit?
• What is the role of punishment in private law? What should it be?
• Does the remedy of compensatory damages aim to make it as though a wrong never happened?
• What differences are there between the rules of remoteness in tort and contract damages?
• “No man should profit from his own wrong”? Why so? Does our private law reflect this principle?
• Ought courts be readier to order specific performance of contracts instead of confining plaintiffs to damages for breach?

Assessment Details

• Individual Project: 85%
• Group Presentation: 15%
• Reflective Journal: Pass/Fail
• Participation: Pass/Fail