Module description
This module is intended for students who have both enjoyed and performed well in the Contract and Tort modules (and, to a lesser degree, ideas from the Property and Trusts modules). Building on the learning outcomes of these modules, this module examines a range of issues across the law of obligations such as how tort law deals with intentional wrongs to reputation and economic interests; the challenging nature of the law concerning the boundary between contract and tort; and the way in which private law reacts to changes in the surrounding social, technological and/or commercial contexts. Moving beyond those subjects, this module completes participants’ understanding of the law of obligations in England and Wales with detailed coverage of the principles and rules of unjust enrichment.
Students will be supported in locating these various issues within the broader contemporary literature on private law and, ultimately, critiquing the success of the law in reaching a coherent and defensible outcome. In addition, students will understand modern debates around the importance of taxonomy.
The module is taught by a team of colleagues from the Contract and Tort teaching teams in The School, with each academic bringing their research expertise to the relevant advanced topic.
Assessment details
Examination (100%)
Educational aims & objectives
The aims of this course are to provide students with a thorough grounding in, and ability to critically analyse various advanced issues in the law of obligations including:
- Contemporary private law theory
- The boundaries and overlap between the different branches of the law of obligations
- Statutory reform of private law
- The principles and constituent elements of the law of unjust enrichment
- Private law and changes in the social, technological and/or commercial contexts
By the end of the course, students should:
- Be able to apply and critique the law of unjust enrichment
- Be able to recognise and appraise how the courts have drawn the boundary between obligations in contract and tort
- Be able to evaluate and critique options for reform within the law of obligations
- Be able to identify and analyse modern themes in the literature concerning private law theory and evaluate these themes against the relevant substantive law.
Teaching pattern
Weekly Seminar (2 hrs)
Suggested reading list
Jane Stapleton ‘Taking the Judges Seriously v Grant Theories’ in Essays on Torts (OUP, 2021)
https://academic.oup.com/book/39672/chapter/339662219
Peter Birks, ‘Rights, Wrongs and Remedies’ (2000) 20 OJLS 1
Andrew Burrows, ‘In Defence of Unjust Enrichment’ (2019) 78 Cambridge Law Journal 521
Tatiana Cutts, ‘Modern Money Had and Received’ (2018) 38 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies