Schemes for compensating injury which operate alongside each other call for important policy decisions to be made concerning their inter-relationship. Are they to take account of one another and, if so, to what extent? These issues can arise in a variety of contexts. Within particular regimes they are the concern, for example, of the overlapping benefit regulations in social security law and the rules relating to contribution in insurance law. However, the focus of this article is upon personal injury litigation. It examines the policy reasons which have been used to justify the different results reached by the law when faced with the problem of ‘collateral benefits’ received by an accident victim also seeking damages. Typically, these benefits are received from the state, or an employer, or an insurer.

In a previous article in Legal Studies I suggested a general framework of rules for analysing problems of restitution which arise from ineffective transactions. It was explained that normally a claim should be available to a party who has performed his part, usually based on mistake or failure or consideration, or on ‘policy’ grounds. A benefit to the recipient of goods and services will usually be shown by the fact that in making the agreement he requested the performance Problems may arise, however, when the factor which renders the contract unenforceable also provides an argument against allowing a claim in restitution. One problem which arises frequently with goods and services is that the factor which vitiates the contract makes it difficult to show a benefit. For example, when the defendant mistakes the nature of the goods which he is purchasing, it may be impossible to say that he requested them for the purpose of showing they are of benefit to him.

The Isle of Man is a largely autonomous dependent territory of the UK. In 2016, Lord Lisvane was commissioned to report on the functioning of the principal organ of governance, the Tynwald. This Lisvane Review has led to substantial constitutional reform within this small democracy, particularly in relation to the unelected second chamber of Tynwald, the Legislative Council. This reflects an ancient tension within the Manx constitution between the House of Keys, since the mid-nineteenth century a directly elected chamber, and the unelected Legislative Council. The Lisvane period saw important changes to the composition and powers of the Legislative Council, as well as gender diversity within Tynwald as a whole. Placing the Manx experience within a broader small democracy theoretical and comparative framework demonstrates not only the possibility of constitutional reform, but also provides insights into resources for constitutional development, the special challenges of managing intimacy, and the dangers of over-concentration of power in a small democracy.

It is often said that distributive justice has no place in private law. However, distributive justice considerations feature strongly in cases involving the remedies imposed over bribes gained in breach of fiduciary duty. This paper argues that courts should exercise structured discretion, guided by principles of distributive justice, in ascertaining the appropriate remedy. The distributive factors of desert, needs and equality should inform the determination of what remedy is apposite to provide justice in the circumstances.

This paper considers the immunity in tort enjoyed by superior court judges in England and Wales. It suggests, first, that the current level of immunity is set too high; secondly, that the reasons traditionally given for this level of immunity are overwhelmingly unconvincing and that, therefore, thirdly, a lesser degree of immunity (which allows judges to be exposed to potential liability under a modified version of the tort of misfeasance in a public office) would be the preferable way to proceed.

A principal concern of inheritance law is defining the relatedness of individuals. In this context the posthumously born child has to be defined in or out of a kinship network for inheritance purposes. Historically the concerns were ones of paternity and, with it, legitimacy. For the posthumously born child these were vital questions, as the illegitimate child was nullius filius, the son of nobody, and disentitled from inheritance. While modern inheritance law has moved away from the disabilities that illegitimacy once entailed, the responses to questions of relatedness in the context of children born through the new reproductive technologies suggest a different approach - one of exclusion. The frozen embryo which is implanted and born after the father's death raises anew the question of the validity of discriminating between children because of the circumstances of their birth. There is a struggle between the practicalities of the administration of an estate and the philosophy of equality which underpins the modern non-discriminatory approach to children born outside of marriage. This paper explores some of the issues and assesses some of the solutions in contemporary debate.

It is clear that several members of the judiciary are unhappy about some of the moral implications of Caldwell recklessness. In particular, there is concern about the accused whose capacities, mental or physical, are appreciably more restricted than those of the ordinary person. Such person may not just fail to foresee risks obvious to rcasonable people, they may plausibly be seen as being incapable of so doing. Judicial anxiety about this first surfaced in Elliott v C. There, the Queen's Bench Divisional Court allowed a prosecution appeal against the acquittal of a 14 year old girl (who was in a remedial class at school) for the criminal destruction of a garden shed and its contents.

The discipline of criminology has been dominated since the turn of the century by an explanatory paradigm known as ‘positivism’. The distinctive features of that paradigm have been both substantive and methodological. On the substantive side ‘positivist criminology’ has been marked by a commitment to the explanation of criminal behaviour (and deviance generally) in terms of characteristics of the individual. Thus positivist criminology has been notable for its explanations of criminal behaviour in terms of gross bodily features, patterns of child-rearing, genetic defect, and idiosyncratic personality traits. On the methodological side positivist criminology has been marked by a preference for scientific method in the evaluation of theory and scientific ideas in the formulation of that theory. By and large these methodological predilections have meant assigning a primacy both to the role of systematic observation in the evaluation of theory and to the avoidance of theoretical assumptions whose validity could not be checked by recourse to observation.

Faced with growing pressures for accountability and increasing complexity of legal work, the international legal community has focused attention on support for the rule of law. Taking a workplace perspective, this study develops and tests an individual-level measure of support for the rule of law in the context of the Canadian public sector. Results from a national survey of government-employed lawyers reveal that increasing work demands have a detrimental effect on perceived ability to uphold the rule of law in the daily execution of work tasks. This negative pressure is moderated by social support in the workplace, with diminishing effect. Lawyers in criminal law practice appear more negatively affected by work demands than those in civil or common law practices.

This paper focuses on consumer-generated reviews (CGRs), which are an increasingly influential source of consumer information. In particular, the paper highlights specific problems associated with CGRs, which questions their role as a reliable information source. Flowing from this, the paper calls for closer regulatory scrutiny of review platforms, which play an important intermediary role in facilitating the provision of CGRs. To this end, the paper considers possible regulatory responses in the EU which may address some of the issues highlighted.

Trans identities are increasingly subjected to contentious public and political debate in the UK, and this has resulted in resource to the law across various contexts. Against that background, this paper considers trans legal parenthood after the decision in R (McConnell and YY) v Registrar General for England and Wales. This judgment held that a trans man who gave birth was the legal ‘mother’ of his child. The wider consequence is that trans legal parenthood will not reflect trans identities, but birth-assigned sex/gender, regardless of whether the parent holds a gender recognition certificate. Separate from this underlying social and political context concerning trans identities, the paper argues that legal parenthood is a flexible and pragmatic concept, which lacks inherent normative content, and which has previously proved capable of accommodating a variety of different familial and reproductive circumstances. The paper argues that the gendered descriptors of ‘mother’ and ‘father’, while remaining the law's default, are not inherent to legal parenthood. Thus, the paper concludes that, despite the ongoing political and cultural debates concerning trans identities, the existing concept of legal parenthood is capable of properly recognising trans parenthood, without requiring any fundamental changes to the concept itself.

This paper examines the different regimes of insurer liability under concurrent causation in English law and Chinese law. The analysis shows that neither English law nor Chinese law is satisfactory in terms of the insurer's liability in such cases. It is argued that only one proximate cause should be identified among multiple causes except in the circumstance where an excluded risk and an insured risk concurrently and independently cause a loss of the subject matter insured. Under this exception, the liability in apportionment approach might be an appropriate solution to the question of the insurer's liability under concurrent causation. This approach, however, is not suggested for concurrent causation where an uninsured risk is one of the proximate causes.

This paper connects two trends in contemporary legal scholarship that do not often intersect, namely commentary on the increasingly diverse nature of family law advice and support services, and calls for a refresh of the regulatory environment in which legal services in general are provided. Focusing on the law and landscape in England and Wales, we argue that regulatory challenges are particularly acute in the field of family law, where the range and reach of services provided by non-lawyers is extraordinary. We illustrate how particular aspects of debates over regulating and diversifying legal services apply to the family law context, noting that such concerns as there are have not always been well targeted. Finally, we identify a sub-set of innovative ‘extra-legal’ services that set private family law even further apart from other sub-fields of law when it comes to regulatory and professional challenge. These services clearly sit inside the landscape of family dispute resolution but equally clearly fall outside the boundaries of what is usually considered ‘legal’. This, we suggest, highlights the need for a concerted effort to define the contours of family law and family legal services so that a holistic approach might be taken to understanding and managing the standards and effectiveness of different service and support types.

This paper examines why Singapore law has not followed English law in the area of beneficial ownership of family property. It points out that the landmark cases in the two jurisdictions are underpinned by different family paradigms.The English landmark cases are based on the unmarried cohabitants paradigm and the legal rules that have emerged from these cases are aimed at, whether successfully or not, ensuring a fair division of the family home upon the breakdown of these relationships. In contrast, the Singapore seminal judgments are underlaid by contests between children over their parents’ property which raised questions as to the parties’ true intentions and the legal techniques to determine that. In the main, this paper argues that the legal rules that emerge in a society are shaped by the conditions of that society: these rules are purpose-built to resolve the specific types of disputes that come through the judicial system, which are in turn moulded by the distinctive conditions of that society. The discussion also shows that whilst the courts in the two jurisdictions differ in the legal techniques which they apply to determine these disputes, they do not appear to differ greatly in their understanding of human interactions and complex family relationships.

This paper revisits the English common law rules on the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in personam. It seeks to demonstrate that, mainly due to the narrow conception of the foreign courts’ ‘international jurisdictional competence’, the operation of this aspect of the English conflict-of-laws rules gives rise to problematic outcomes. Subsequently, the paper proceeds to identify and evaluate three of the main doctrinal models which have been proposed in response to these shortcomings. It is contended that, despite their virtues, ultimately, none of these models provides the desirable basis for recasting the law. The paper's main contribution is, therefore, to advance an alternative approach for the reformulation of the recognition and enforcement regime at common law. In this regard, it is argued that the foreign courts’ international jurisdictional competence should be defined more broadly as to include the jurisdictional ‘gateways’, presently codified within CPR Practice Direction 6B para 3.1.

The illegality defence is an important element of private law, but its operation has been unpredictable. In Patel v Mirza, the Supreme Court opted for a flexible approach, which does not increase predictability. This approach was recently confirmed in Henderson v Dorset Healthcare University NHS Foundation Trust and Stoffel & Co v Grondona. I propose a principle to guide the application of the illegality defence in tort: namely, the claim fails for illegality if the claimant's harm is the ordinary result of the claimant's wrongdoing. It is argued that the guiding principle: (i) substantially explains the case law; (ii) is normatively defensible; and (iii) makes the defence much more predictable.

The enforceability of the convenants in a lease after an assignment, whether by the landlord or the tenant or both, is a matter of considerable practical importance. In the case of long leases, assignments of the leasehold estate and of the reversion are a common occurrence; both will often change hands many times before the end of the term, creating a welter of potential parties to any action on the covenants. In addition, there may be sureties who have undertaken to guarantee performance of the tenant's covenants. The basic principles governing the parties' rights and liabilities in this field under the present law are well known, centring upon privity of contract, privity of estate and upon statutory rules found in ss 141 and 142 of the Law of Property Act 1925. The area is one of vital commercial significance to landlords, and which potentially affects the residential security and amenity enjoyed by tenants (in the case, for example, of landlords' covenants to renew or to repair). It is also a field in which many of the issues and concepts have been the subject of judicial and academic consideration for more than a century, yet a surprising number of uncertainties remain. The law consists of a complex set of rules, which together form something resembling an intellectual jigsaw puzzle, and one from which several pieces are still missing. The aim of the first part of this article is to highlight some of these gaps.

Unlike England and Wales, Ireland has not yet moved from the traditional common law rejection of prenuptial agreements. Nevertheless, similar policy concerns continue to be debated in both jurisdictions, particularly regarding the balance between autonomy and fairness concerns, and gender equity. In 2007, an Irish ministerial Study Group recommended limited recognition of prenuptial agreements, foreshadowing similar proposals by the Law Commission for England and Wales in 2014. However, the Irish recommendations were never implemented, despite sustained lobbying. This paper draws on relational theory to scrutinise the Study Group's proposals, identifying its core assumptions and their implications. The paper contends that Irish courts dealing with spousal agreements have tacitly accepted liberal conceptualisations of autonomy, which may lead to injustice. Furthermore, the Study Group's recommendations have been overtaken by events. Recent decisions on spousal agreements emphasise respect for party autonomy, without interrogating what this means. This could be problematic if applied to prenuptial agreements. Accordingly, the paper suggests modifications to the Study Group's proposals, to address relational concerns. In this regard, the paper speaks to the broader debate on family autonomy, and draws on comparative perspectives, including the recommendations of the Law Commission for England and Wales, and the Canadian experience.