FOREWORD
by
Lord Hope of Craighead
It is always a pleasure to welcome the publication of a textbook which has earned enough respect and support to run into a further edition, and this is no exception.
This is a practitioner’s textbook, designed and written by a practitioner. The area of law with which it deals is heavily dependent on precedent. This was not so when awards of damages in cases of personal injury were largely in the hands of a jury. But it is many years since that was the case, and the various factors which go to make up a total award today usually require much more by way of analysis than can be safely left for discussion in the jury room. A large body of case law has been built up which is available for the assistance of those who are called upon to advise on the award a case is likely to attract, and for the guidance of the judge who has to make it. This is a mixed blessing, however. The larger the body, the more inaccessible the case law is likely to become unless it is organised by breaking it down into smaller groups according to its subject matter.
This is what this book does. The method which it uses is not new, as damages awards lend themselves to this kind of treatment more readily than any other category. What marks this book out for special attention is the amount of detail it offers, especially by means of the edited judgments which appear in the Appendices.The devil is in the detail, as the saying goes. Presentation of the case law in this form seeks to meet the familiar problem that the headline a case attracts in a digest does not reveal the full story without which its relevance cannot be fully appreciated. Resort to the Appendices will ease the task of the researcher who seeks to discover quickly where to go in search of a reliable precedent.
A book of this kind must be kept fully up to date if it is to continue to be useful. Resort to loose-leaf presentation was always the logical way to go. I am delighted that in the case of Mr Bennett’s book too this step is now seen to be justified
June 2007
David Hope
