PLRG Seminar: Tort and Regulation by Professor Donal Nolan

PLRG is pleased to have Professor Donal Nolan join us for our 2nd PLRG Seminar where he discussed his chapter on ‘Tort and Regulation’.  The event was held on 5 October 2021 and was moderated by Dr Timothy Liau. Professor Nolan was also the speaker for the 19th Kwa Geok Choo Distinguished Visitors Lecture that was held via Zoom on 30 September 2021, titled ‘Negligence and Automony’.

Abstract

This paper considers the many and varied ways in which the law of tort interacts with regulatory law (by which I mean mandatory regulatory norms, rather than voluntary codes of practice and the like). Examples of these interactions include (1) the indirect influence of regulatory norms on substantive tort law, whereby for example regulatory norms inform decisions on breach of duty in
negligence or substantial interference in private nuisance; (2) the more direct influence of regulatory norms on tort via mechanisms such as a tort of breach of statutory duty, a doctrine of negligence per se, a regulatory compliance defence or a rule of regulatory pre-emption; and (3) various other forms of potential or actual interaction. Although I draw on all areas of tort law in the
paper, my particular focus is on the law of negligence, the law of private nuisance and the law of product liability. The overall message of the paper is twofold: first, that the relationship between tort and regulation is complex and multifaceted; and second, that as a matter of general principle tort law should not automatically defer to regulatory norms and outcomes but should instead
incorporate them into its own analytical frameworks.

About the Speaker

Donal Nolan is Professor of Private Law in the University of Oxford and Francis Reynolds and Clarendon Fellow and Tutor in Law at Worcester College, Oxford. He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford (BA and BCL) and was previously a Lecturer in Law at King’s College London. He is a Senior Fellow of the University of Melbourne, a founding member of the World Tort Law Society,
and an elected member of the American Law Institute.
Professor Nolan’s research is focused primarily on the law of tort, and in particular on the law of negligence, the law of private nuisance and the interface between tort law and public law. He has recently undertaken a major empirical study of the operation of the contributory negligence doctrine with Professor James Goudkamp, which has generated two books: Contributory Negligence: Principles and Practice (OUP, 2018) and Contributory Negligence in the Twenty-First Century (OUP, 2019). He is also an editor of Winfield & Jolowicz on Tort and of Lunney &  Oliphant’s Tort: Text and Materials.

The event flyer can be seen here.