The public management of liability risks

Oxford Journal of Legal Studies

Volumn 31, Issue 3, 2011, Pages 527-550

  Halliday, Simon ^a,b   Ilan, Jonathan ^c   Scott, Colin ^d  

^a UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES   (Australia)

^c UNIVERSITY OF KENT   (United Kingdom)

^d UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN   (Ireland)

Author keywords

Empirical legal studies; Liability; Negligence; Public law

Indexed keywords

EID: 80052458556     PISSN: 01436503     EISSN: 14643820     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/ojls/gqr009     Document Type: Article

References (69)

1. W Haltom and M McCann, Distorting the Law: Politics, Media and the Litigation Crisis (University of Chicago Press 2004).
2. K Williams, 'State of Fear: Britain's "Compensation Culture" Reviewed' (2005) 25 Legal Stud 499.
3. A Morris, 'Spiralling or Stabilising? The Compensation Culture and Our Propensity to Claim Damages for Personal Injury' (2007) 70 MLR 349.
4. Actuarial Profession, 'The Cost of Compensation Culture' accessed 26 November 2010.
5. Irish Business and Employers' Confederation, National Survey of Personal Injury Claims 2000 (IBEC 2001).
6. Better Regulation Task Force, Better Routes to Redress (Better Regulation Task Force 2004).
7. R Lewis, A Morris and K Oliphant, 'Tort Personal Injury Claims Statistics: Is there a Compensation Culture in the UK?' (2006) 14 Torts LJ 158.
8. See, for example, Better Regulation Task Force (n 4).
9. Constitutional Affairs Committee, Compensation Culture (HC 754-I and HC 754-II 2005-06).
10. See, for example, C Harlow, State Liability (OUP 2004).
11. Stovin v Wise [1996] AC 923, 958 (Lord Hoffman).
12. See Morris (n 1).
13. See, for example, M Power, The Risk Management of Everything (Demos 2004).
14. M Power and others, 'Reputational Risk as a Logic of Organizing in Late Modernity' (2009) 30 Org Stud 301.
15. See Harlow (n 6).
16. C Epp, Making Rights Real: Activists, Bureaucrats, and the Creation of the Legalistic State (University of Chicago Press 2009).
17. See L Mather, 'Lawyers and Solicitors Separated by a Common Legal System: Anti-Tobacco Litigation in the United States and Britain' in D Engel and M McCann (eds), Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice (Stanford University Press 2009).
18. See Epp (n 10) ch 7.
19. Accounts Commission for Scotland, A Costly Trip? Management of Road Safety Defects (Accounts Commission for Scotland 1996).
20. Roads Act 1993, s 13; Road Traffic Act 1961, s 95.
21. Flynn v Waterford County Council [2004] IEHC 335. Provision was made to abolish local authority immunity in respect of provision and maintenance of roads (Civil Liability Act 1961, s 60), but the order to activate the provision has not been adopted.
22. G Dworkin, 'Highways (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1961: The Deathknell of Nonfeasance Immunity for Highway Authorities' (1962) 25 MLR 336.
23. Laurie v Magistrates of Aberdeen 1911 SC 1226.
24. See, for example, Innes v Magistrates of Edinburgh (1798) Mor 13189 and 13967; Black v Glasgow Corporation 1959 SC 188; Fraser v Glasgow Corporation 1972 SLT 177.
25. Highways Act 1980, s 41.
26. Roads (S) Act 1984, s 1.
27. Hutchison v North Lanarkshire Council [2007] CSOH 23; Nugent v Glasgow City Council [2009] CSOH 88.
28. Gibson v Strathclyde Regional Council 1993 SLT 1243.
29. Roads Liaison Group, Well Maintained Highways-Code of Practice for Highway Maintenance Management (The Stationery Office 2005).
30. See, for example, Hutchison (n 21) and Nugent (n 21).
31. See Harrison v Derby City Council [2008] EWCA Civ 583.
32. Roads Liaison Group (n 23).
33. Compare, for example, the approach of the courts in assessing defects in the following cases: McClafferty v British Telecommunications 1987 SLT 327; McMillan v Lord Advocate 1991 SLT 150; McLaughlin v Strathclyde Regional Council 1992 SLT 959; Hutchison (n 21); Nugent (n 21).
34. Roads Liaison Group (n 23) 96.
35. Beatty v The Rent Tribunal [2005] IESC 66. See also Gorringe v Calderdale MBC [2004] UKHL 15, [2004] 1 WLR 1057.
36. M Lipsky, Street Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services (Russell Sage Foundation 1980).
37. S Halliday, Judicial Review and Compliance with Administrative Law (Hart Publishing 2004).
38. See, for example, R Miller and A Sarat, 'Grievances, Claims and Disputes: Assessing the Adversary Culture' (1981) 15 LSR 252.
39. H Genn, Paths to Justice: What People Do and Think about Going to Law (Hart Publishing 1999).
40. Accounts Commission for Scotland (n 13).
41. Lewis, Morris and Oliphant (n 4); Morris (n 1).
42. Local Government Association, Suing the Council-Helping the Citizen or Harming the Community (LGA Publications 2004).
43. Prior to local government reorganization in 1996, roads were maintained by 12 regional authorities. Post-1996, they are maintained by 32 unitary authorities. To facilitate comparison between pre-1996 and post-1996 averages, the total claims received across Scotland as a whole were divided by 32.
44. See, for example, R Ericson and A Doyle, Uncertain Business: Risk, Insurance and the Limits of Knowledge (University of Toronto Press 2004) 4.
45. Epp (n 10).
46. Roads Liaison Group (n 23).
47. S Halliday, J Ilan and C Scott, 'Tort Law and the Regulation of Public Authorities' (forthcoming).
48. See D McBarnet and C Whelan, 'The Elusive Spirit of the Law: Formalism and the Struggle for Legal Control' (1991) 54 MLR 848.
49. Unlike Epp (n 10), we were not able to use quantitative methods to determine whether, as he suggests, the extent of public authorities' engagement with professional networks is significant for deep, as opposed to 'creative', compliance.
50. See, for example, C Scott, 'Accountability in the Regulatory State' (2000) 27 JLS 38.
51. D Galligan, 'Authoritarianism in Government and Administration: The Promise of Administrative Justice' (2001) 54 CLP 79.
52. S Halliday and C Scott, 'Administrative Justice' in P Cane and H Kritzer (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Empirical Legal Research (OUP 2010).
53. J Hood and S Kelly, 'The Emergence of Public Sector Risk Management: The Case of Local Authorities in Scotland' (1999) 20 Pol Stud 273.
54. Roads Liaison Group (n 23).
55. See, for example, P Di Maggio and W Powell, 'The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields' (1983) 48 Am Soc Rev 147.
56. See, for example, C Scott, 'Private Regulation of the Public Sector: A Neglected Facet of Contemporary Governance' (2002) 29 JLS 56.
57. R Ericson, A Doyle and D Barry, Insurance as Governance (University of Toronto Press 2003).
58. Local authorities' property profiles are both large and varied, covering everything from buildings and IT facilities to ice cream vending machines, the council regalia and golf carts.
59. See also R Bagshaw, 'Monetary Remedies in Public Law: Misdiagnosis and Misprescription' (2006) 26 Leg Stud 4.
60. LB Edelman, 'Overlapping Fields and Constructed Legalities: The Endogeneity of Law' in J O'Brien (ed), Private Equity, Corporate Governance and the Dynamics of Capital Market Regulation (Imperial College Press 2004).
61. Such an understanding of the relationship between law and society has much in common with aspects of regulation scholarship.
62. For example, on the negotiated meaning of compliance between regulator and regulatee, see B Hutter, Compliance: Regulation and Environment (OUP 1997).
63. On the 'productive disintegration' of regulatory law and private law, see H Collins, Regulating Contracts (OUP 1999).
64. On practices of 'productive cherry-picking' whereby courts selectively acknowledge and apply regulatory norms in private law decision-making see J Black, 'Law and Regulation: The Case of Finance' in C Parker and others (eds), Regulating Law (OUP 2004).
65. See Epp (n 10); Power and others (n 8).
66. See Ericson, Doyle and Barry (n 47).
67. For further details, see Halliday, Ilan and Scott (n 39).
68. See, for example, Harlow (n 6) 127.
69. See L Platt, M Sunkin and K Calvo 'Judicial Review Litigation as an Incentive to Change in Local Authority Public Services in England & Wales' (2010) 20 J Public Admin Theory Res 243.