Tort Law

Sam Coghlan was Deputy Director and Senior Consultant of the Thames Ontario Library Service Board, Southwestern Ontario.

The contents of this book might have been derived from the first-year introductory torts course in any law school in Canada. The points have been streamlined and simplified, but the structure is the same.

The law school approach of teaching the law to the general public has some positive aspects. For instance, the workings of the legal profession become demystified somewhat; the reader does not feel condescended to. In this instance however, given the ignorance of the layman with respect to tort law, another approach would be preferable.

The large difference between law school and a public library, for instance, is that the law student exists in a total environment of “The Law” whereas the general reader is simply “dabbling.” Tort Law relies heavily on the use of cases. The law stu-dent daily deliberates on the relationships between cases, various courts, and statutes to an incredibly sophisticated degree. The general reader’s only introduction to these complex interactions is an inadequate section on the importance of precedents in the law.

The book resembles a law course in another unfortunate manner. The language often relies on legal jargon. The author does attempt to simplify sentence structure and avoids convoluted legalese. But too often legal cliches appear and in some cases Latin expressions are unnecessarily introduced. This, in combination with the simplified expression, will frustrate both the complete novice and the reader with some prior understanding of the law. The glossary does provide some assistance with the language used.

Tort Law must be read through; it is not a reference book. The table of contents gives a very sketchy idea of the contents, and there is no index. A good index, through wise cross-referencing, might have compensated for the legal jargon. Several questions are printed on the cover of the book as if to suggest that the answers to these are to be found within. The answers are available, but for several of the questions (such as “Can you sue the police for false arrest?”), insufficient direction is given to find them. The book’s title should be different, since the concept of “torts” is not as popularly familiar as that of, say, “crimes.” People may not even know that they would like to know about tort law.

The book does give an adequate description of tort law. However, it will probably do little to enhance the layman’s appreciation of his legal system and the law that governs his behaviour.