For anyone concerned with the future of Scots law the appearance of a new book published under the auspices of the Scottish Universities Law Institute is an important event. New additions to the series are eagerly anticipated. Expectations are high.
That is the demanding context in which SULI has launched Delict, of which Professor Joe Thomson is consulting editor. Professor Walker's The Law of Delict in Scotland was one of the earliest of the SULI series. That it remains in its second edition of 1981 would seem reason enough for commissioning a new work on this central area of the law, but in his preface to Delict Professor Thomson identifies another. He explains that it is no longer possible to argue that the law is based on one underlying general principle such as reparation for culpa. Different interests are protected in different ways. It was therefore unlikely that a single person would have the expertise to write a text covering the whole subject at the requisite level. Accordingly, Delict will be the work of at least nine authors each writing one or more of the planned twenty-two chapters. I say “will be” because it remains work in progress. As a result of the exigencies of modern academic life, what has been published is the first tranche of the book, consisting of twelve of its twenty-two chapters. Two further tranches, adding the remaining ten chapters, are to follow. To facilitate this, Delict is the first of the SULI series to be published in a loose-leaf format.
Although as yet incomplete the structure of the book is reasonably apparent. In broad outline, the scheme is not so very different from that adopted by Professor Walker. Walker divided his work into a General Part, which he described as discussing general principles, and a Special Part, which considered the application of these principles to the infringement of various specific interests (with a chapter on the negligence of persons professing special skills tacked on at the end). Delict has three parts. Part I is entitled “General” and when complete will contain chapters on the province and function of the law of delict, delict and private international law, capacity and parties, liability for delictual actions (in the sense of to whom liability attaches), delictual liability at common law, delictual liability for breach of statute, causation, defences, prescription and limitation, and remedies. All of these topics feature in Walker's General Part and would seem requisite for a work...
