登陆注册
5451600000003

第3章

One is, that a contract to do a prohibited act is unlawful, and the other, that, if one of two or more joint wrongdoers has to pay all the damages, he cannot recover contribution from his fellows.And that Ibelieve is all.You see how the vague circumference of the notion of duty shrinks and at the same time grows more precise when we wash it with cynical acid and expel everything except the object of our study, the operations of the law.

Nowhere is the confusion between legal and moral ideas more manifest than in the law of contract.Among other things, here again the so-called primary rights and duties are invested with a mystic significance beyond what can be assigned and explained.The duty to keep a contract at common law means a prediction that you must pay damages if you do not keep it--and nothing else.If you commit a tort, you are liable to pay a compensatory sum.If you commit a contract, you are liable to pay a compensatory sum unless the promised event comes to pass, and that is all the difference.But such a mode of looking at the matter stinks in the nostrils of those who think it advantageous to get as much ethics into the law as they can.It was good enough for Lord Coke, however, and here, as in many others cases, I am content to abide with him.In Bromage v.Genning, a prohibition was sought in the Kings' Bench against a suit in the marches of Wales for the specific performance of a covenant to grant a lease, and Coke said that it would subvert the intention of the covenantor, since he intends it to be at his election either to lose the damages or to make the lease.Sergeant Harra for the plaintiff confessed that he moved the matter against his conscience, and a prohibition was granted.This goes further than we should go now, but it shows what I venture to say has been the common law point of view from the beginning, although Mr.Harriman, in his very able little book upon Contracts has been misled, as I humbly think, to a different conclusion.

I have spoken only of the common law, because there are some cases in which a logical justification can be found for speaking of civil liabilities as imposing duties in an intelligible sense.These are the relatively few in which equity will grant an injunction, and will enforce it by putting the defendant in prison or otherwise punishing him unless he complies with the order of the court.But I hardly think it advisable to shape general theory from the exception, and I think it would be better to cease troubling ourselves about primary rights and sanctions altogether, than to describe our prophecies concerning the liabilities commonly imposed by the law in those inappropriate terms.

I mentioned, as other examples of the use by the law of words drawn from morals, malice, intent, and negligence.It is enough to take malice as it is used in the law of civil liability for wrongs what we lawyers call the law of torts--to show that it means something different in law from what it means in morals, and also to show how the difference has been obscured by giving to principles which have little or nothing to do with each other the same name.Three hundred years ago a parson preached a sermon and told a story out of Fox's Book of Martyrs of a man who had assisted at the torture of one of the saints, and afterward died, suffering compensatory inward torment.It happened that Fox was wrong.

The man was alive and chanced to hear the sermon, and thereupon he sued the parson.Chief Justice Wray instructed the jury that the defendant was not liable, because the story was told innocently, without malice.

He took malice in the moral sense, as importing a malevolent motive.

But nowadays no one doubts that a man may be liable, without any malevolent motive at all, for false statements manifestly calculated to inflict temporal damage.In stating the case in pleading, we still should call the defendant's conduct malicious; but, in my opinion at least, the word means nothing about motives, or even about the defendant's attitude toward the future, but only signifies that the tendency of his conduct under known circumstances was very plainly to cause the plaintiff temporal harm.

同类推荐
  • 登裴秀才迪小台

    登裴秀才迪小台

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 金刚寿命陀罗尼经

    金刚寿命陀罗尼经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 拔陂菩萨经

    拔陂菩萨经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 大川普济禅师语录

    大川普济禅师语录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • The Man Who Was Afraid

    The Man Who Was Afraid

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • TF少年盛世

    TF少年盛世

    我本是女娲娘娘身边最后一诛幸存的"四叶草",我因受天上"三位天使"两千年来细心的照料,幸而转化成人,取名戚百草。本来已经动心的他,却在野营的途中看着她在他眼前坠落悬崖,当她再次回到他的身边的时候,她已经完完全全的忘记了他,他痛苦并难过着,他该如何去追回她呢。"爱情"是人类永恒的主题,看由四叶草仙子转化而成的人类戚百草是如何进行一场爱恋的吧。羽毛家庭群号码:493983351欢迎大家加入讨论哦。
  • 浪漫的逃亡

    浪漫的逃亡

    我一直都在逃亡,可你是一道背负在我身体里的伤口,它始终不肯愈合,除非死亡。在一个遥远国度我写下这些文字,写下了我对你含着热泪的思念。
  • 金盏花

    金盏花

    讲述的是一个26岁的女孩韩佩吟,收到了好朋友虞颂蘅的结婚请柬,她想起自己,因为母亲生病在床的原故,整天忙着工作,赚钱付母亲的医药费,从不敢奢望爱情。同情她的一位老师给她介绍了一份家教工作,给一个著名律师赵自耕的女儿补习。韩佩吟来到赵家,看到了一座像小说中的房子,赵自耕的男秘书苏慕南给韩佩吟开了门。她看到了顶顶有名的大律师,活跃在商业界、司法界及新闻界的人物赵自耕……因为金盏花,纤纤(赵自耕的女儿)找到了属于自己的单纯的快乐;因为金盏花,佩吟与自耕由热恋而走入婚礼。
  • 斗罗之生死相依

    斗罗之生死相依

    书皮子留着做纪念吧在之后会换的。一个小偷救了一个小女孩后意外重生到了斗罗大陆的世界找到了自己在原来世界里最喜欢的角色唐舞桐可是慢慢的才发现自己喜欢的并不是她那他能找着自己的真爱吗?我们的群聊号码:745503550
  • 快把爱情放进冰箱

    快把爱情放进冰箱

    身为酒店试睡员,英子菁最霸道的试睡经历,就是试了酒店集团的少东家的房间。少东家宠她宠到上天入地,英小姐却并不领情:“我的事情,你不要插手!”男人眉眼一笑,轻轻揽她入怀,指尖挑开她的樱唇:“好,我不插手……我只……”——生活不止有眼前的宠爱,还有夜晚和发糖。【【此处高亮:试睡员是酒店质量测评员,职业体验酒店房间的床铺适睡度,以及检测相关软硬件设施,然后评分以供其它顾客参考。纯洁的孩子们不要想歪了哦~~】】
  • 我的老板是大美女

    我的老板是大美女

    穿越是好事,但碰到武则天类型的女人就不幸了,更倒霉的是她竟然是我的领导,怎么有这么强悍的美女,这可是八十年代的香江呀!
  • 邪帝独宠:倾城魔妃

    邪帝独宠:倾城魔妃

    她是绝色佣兵,她的爱情却敌不过误会和伤害,最终她杀死情人,自己却也殒命。重生,她来到魔界,从一个小小的魔兵做起,练法术,斗劲敌,成就高贵无双的地位。一座尘封的墓穴,令魔界闻之色变。一个神秘的面具男子,亦敌亦友,在她危难时助她一臂之力。高阶魔法,上古神器,魔界一切的一切是诱惑,更是暗藏的危险……
  • 降三世忿怒明王念诵仪轨

    降三世忿怒明王念诵仪轨

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 行动:企业绩效的唯一源泉

    行动:企业绩效的唯一源泉

    随着西方一些先进管理理念的渗透,随着中国企业家越来越热衷于搞理论“研究”,有一种危险的趋势正在席卷着整个中国经济舞台。可以说,这种趋势对一个企业乃至整个国家经济的负面影响,是致命的。这种趋势,就是脱离了实践,片面强调管理理论,甚至于“只刮风不下雨”的管理行为。
  • 韩娱之人气者们

    韩娱之人气者们

    抬头仰望同一片灿烂的天空,请带我前往你存在过的时间。听说人生的每一次相遇,都是久别重逢。那么眼前的久别重逢,又该是此生怎样的一场相遇?