Showing papers on "Damages published in 1973"

Compensation for Personal Injury: A Requiem for the Common Law in New Zealand

Abstract: In October 1972 the New Zealand Parliament passed the Accident Compensation Act 1972 which establishes the most comprehensive accident compensation scheme ever enacted in the common law world and deals a mortal blow to the traditional tort system of compensating the victims of accidental injury. The stunning thing about the New Zealand experiment turns out to be that the common law has something to teach social insurance, rather than the other way around. Despite the legislation being intended to replace and improve upon the deficiencies of common law and worker’s compensation, it is apparent that the principles upon which the legislation is based threaten to swallow up the entire balance of New Zealand’s comprehensive social welfare system. The shape of the new accident legislation has been profoundly influenced by aspects of the common law of damages, especially damages for economic loss and dignitary harm. The policy makers have tried hard to keep the accident system separate from the social welfare system, but drawing boundaries between the two has proved to be very difficult. The idea of tailoring compensation payments to earnings up to a level which represents a large amount of the actual loss suffered by most people who are injured, coupled with a response to intangible losses, adds a richness of calibrated response to the compensating of losses that is altogether absent from flat rate schemes. Should this approach to compensating all losses come to pass in New Zealand it will be the legacy of the common law. In that sense this article is a respectful obituary to the common law as a method of compensating personal injury.New Zealand’s society is based upon strong threads of egalitarianism, pragmatism, state enterprise, humanitarianism and a comprehensive welfare state. This paper considers the changes made to New Zealand social welfare benefits following an extensive review by a Royal Commission. The Commissioners found that the system was sound in principle, and the amendments they recommended were not of a fundamental kind. The Commission also rejected a move toward earnings-related benefits, pointing out that the aims of the welfare scheme and accident compensation scheme are not the same. The aim of the accident compensation scheme was to maintain the standard of living enjoyed by the accident victim while the welfare system aimed to ensure that all members of the community have income sufficient to reach an adequate living standard. Nevertheless, earnings-related compensation for periods of incapacity caused by illness was recommended as an addition to the scheme for accident compensation.The paper then turns to discussion of the accident compensation legal framework in New Zealand under common law and the damages available, and considers what the new legislation provides. It then turns to the process of reform, covering the process from the initial Royal Commission on Personal Injury to the introduction of accident compensation legislation into Parliament. As the most ambitious reform of tort law implemented in the common law world, the scheme will be worth watching. The question of first importance will be how far the accident compensation scheme becomes absorbed into the welfare system and what effect its pattern of compensation will have on that system.

The Emerging Law of Due Process for Public School Students.

Abstract: central theme of this discussion deals with the legal aspect and increasing prominence of due process of law as it relates to the rights of students in public schools. The article is prompted by a federal court decision involving expulsion of a student from a public school in Dade County, Florida.1 The significance of this decision rests in the fact that the United States District Court stipulated in its final judgment that the principal of the school reimburse student plaintiff compensatory damages and costs. Although there are some who feel the judgment has little or no value as precedent due to the fact that the court's order was by stipulation and agreement of counsel, nevertheless, this reasoning has failed to relieve the concern of practicing administrators in Dade County. The legal aspect referred to above is more simply expressed in terms of the proliferation of cases before the federal court system questioning the actions of school administrators relative to procedural due process. It is my contention that greater direction must be given the practicing school administrator since the intricate complexity of case law is rapidly changing. As a result of this change, the historic shibboleth that the courts award a wide degree of latitude to school boards over the internal management of schools has eroded to a lesser degree. Insufficient attention to the whole panoply of school law, specifically student rights, can create vexing problems for school administrators and school boards.

SPARTAN STEEL & ALLOYS LTD. v. MARTIN & CO. (CONTRACTORS) LTD.

Abstract: June 22,1972 Damages — Remoteness — Negligence — Economic loss — Contractors damaging cable supplying electricity to factory — Physical damage to metal in factory's furnace as result of power cut — Loss of profit from “melt” and from further melts which would have taken place if no power cut — Whether economic loss recoverable — Whether economic loss attaching to physical loss recoverable — Doctrine of parasitic damages.

The tort of negligence in Nigeria

Abstract: Academic disputation continues as to whether Nigerian courts are bound to apply English decisions subsequent to 1900. From a practical point of view, however, such decisions are treated as authorities which ought to be followed unless there is strong reason to the contrary. In the area of tort, only when the question of damages has arisen have judges in Nigeria shown conspicuous signs of independence. For practical purposes, therefore, one may treat the Nigerian law of tort as being identical with that of England except where the latter has been modified by statute. The tort of negligence has, of course, been little affected by legislation in England. The most important legislative change, relating to apportionment of damages in contributory negligence cases, has been adopted in all parts of Nigeria. In the Northern States, however, the doctrine of common employment is still in force, and only Lagos has legislation based on the Occupiers' Liability Act, 1957.

La Responsabilité Extra-Contractuelle en Droit Zaïrois

Abstract: Civil liability can be defined as “the obligation attaching to an individual or his group to make good damage caused to another by himself, by persons related to him, or by animals or things of which he has the ownership or custody”. In the first place liability is objective, for which the only requisite is to prove the harm suffered by the victim. Fault, or rather the mental state of the person liable, does not enter into the matter except at the stage when it becomes necessary to determine the measure of damages: damages will vary in accordance with the degree of “wrongful intent” of the defendant. While it does not take fault into consideration, customary law, on the contrary, considerably extends the notion of actionable damage: harm of any kind whatever can give rise to a right to compensation. In the result, there is no question of the chain of causation between the damage suffered and its author; the only question is to decide who shall pay the compensation payable in respect of such damage.