Professor Caroline Fennell
Dean of the Faculty of Law
University College Cork

requests the pleasure of your company at
the Inaugural Lecture of
Professor Steve Hedley

The rise and rise of personal injury liability:
A temporary difficulty or a permanent crisis?

Thursday, January 22, 2004

in Devere Hall, Áras na Mac Léinn, UCC

at 6 p.m.

Damages for personal injury are a traditional part of the common law. But
today, this established legal institution seems problematical.

Historically, most legal systems from early times recognised liability for
personal injuries caused by fault. Damages were typically rather modest in
extent and availability, carefully defined and limited. But over the course
of the 20th century, the common law gave birth to a monster: very general
liability for personal injury, determined by abstract legal formulae which
forever seem to extend liability to a greater and greater extent. For over
half a century now, the starting point has been that any injury foreseeable
before the event can give rise to liability, unless reasonable precautions
to guard against it were taken. Left to itself - as technical areas of law
very often are - general liability for negligent harm seems likely only to
grow further.

But is the monster malign or benevolent? Concern at its size and scope,
horror at the insurance premiums necessary to feed it, and distaste at the
profit which lawyers and other intermediaries make from the "compo culture"
it generates, are unceasing throughout the common law world. In his
inaugural lecture, Prof Steve Hedley considers what we can reasonably expect
of the system, what values seem to guide it, and whether a reasonable
alternative exists. In all the recent controversy over reform, is there a
quick fix that will ensure that the problem is only temporary - or do we
have a permanent crisis on our hands?

Steve Hedley has recently been appointed Professor of Law at UCC. He was
brought up in London, and studied Law at Oxford (BA 1980), Cambridge (LLB
1981) and the Council of Legal Education in London (Bar Finals in 1982); he
subsequently completed a BSc at the Open University (1999). He taught at St
Hugh's College Oxford (1982-1985) and at Christ's College Cambridge
(1985-2003). He has published books on Tort and Restitution; topics of
recent articles include the sale of goods, unjust enrichment, the influence
of the Internet on legal development, and the structure and future of the
common law. He will be contributing to the Law Faculty's teaching by
promoting the study of core areas of obligations, as well as enhancing the
Faculty's already considerable expertise in e-commerce. He is currently
working on various projects, including vexatious litigation, the "compo
culture", legal history, and the structure of the law of obligations.

RSVP (acceptances only): Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Email: [log in to unmask]    mailto:[log in to unmask]
Valerie Hill/Linda Condon
Department of Law
University College Cork
Tel: 021 4902224
Fax: 021 4270690

Campus Map of UCC including Car Parks:
http://www.ucc.ie/admin/build/campusp.html

Details of this and other UCC Law Faculty events at
http://www.ucc.ie/law/faculty/events.shtml