Subjects:

English Legal System

Contents:

I The Enterprise

1 Basic Principles

2 Differences among Legal Systems

II Property

3 Possession and Ownership

4 The Extent of the Right to Use Property: Nuisance, Troubles de voisinage, and Immissionenrecht

5 Private Modification of the Right to use Property: Servitudes

6 Rights Annexed to the Use of Property: The Case of Water Rights

7 Loss of Resources without the Owner's Consent: Necessity and Adverse Possession

8 Acquisition of Resources without a Prior Owner's Consent: Minerals, Capture, Found Property

III Torts

9 The Structure of the Modern Civil and Common Law of Torts

10 The Defendant's Conduct: Intent, Negligence, Strict Liability

11 Liability in Tort for Harm to Reputation, Dignity, Privacy, and 'Personality'

12 Liability in Tort for Pure Economic Loss

IV Contracts

13 Promises

14 Mistake

15 Impossibility and Unexpected Circumstances

16 Promises to Make a Gift

17 Promises to Exchange

18 Liability for Breach of Contract

V Unjust Enrichment

19 The Principle against Unjustified Enrichment

20 Restitution without Enrichment?

20 Remedies in Restitution

Foundations of Private Law is a treatise on the Western law of property, contract, tort and unjust enrichment in both common law systems and civil law systems. The thesis of the book is that underlying these fields of law are common principles, and that these principles can be used to explain the history and development of these areas.

These underlying common principles are matters of common sense, which were given their archetypal expression by older jurists who wrote in the Aristotelian tradition. These principles shaped the development of Western law but can resolve legal problems which these older writers did not confront.