The Common Law (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)

By Oliver Holmes, Jr. and Tom Schweich

The Common Law changed America forever. The lectures - which were given at the Lowell Institute in Boston and subsequently published in 1880 - created a buzz of excitement that enveloped the New England intellectual community. Over a century later, we can look back at The Common Law and still feel the same sense of excitement that our predecessors did, virtually undiminished by the tumultuous decades of American jurisprudence that have followed. It remains an exhilarating landmark in law because both its content and its style, its substance and its process, perfectly mirror what common law is: a complex and diffuse combination of actual cases, history, analysis, and philosophy - all woven together to create the rules by which we live.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Release date: Sep 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781411428812

Reviews for The Common Law (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)

[keylawk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Holmes spent the first ten years of his service on the Supreme Court known as "The Dissenter", and for most of the chamber discussion was literally holding his head in his hands in utter despondency. As for "Negligence", he reminds us that "like ownership, [it] is "a complex conception". [115] Importantly, he finds the element of "public policy" in the concept. In other words, liability flows not merely from breach of a standard of care of the tortfeasor (fault), but upon public policy. 115. A "stricter rule" applies if damage is caused "by a pistol, in view of the danger to the public". 116. In other words, we analyze the burden on the victim in light of the benefit to the public. As Justice Traynor suggested, the necessity of "spreading the burden among those who benefit", arises from this public policy analysis. Unfortunately, jurors today (and in spite of Holmes and Traynor's best efforts) still find little help for applying this leg of liability.