Negligence, Public Bodies, and Ruthlessness
Negligence, Public Bodies, and Ruthlessness
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疏忽、公共机构和冷酷无情
DOI：
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发表时间：
2009
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通讯作者：
R. Mullender
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
R. Mullender
法律委员会在最近的一份咨询文件（“行政补救”）中得出结论，索赔人能够在各种不可接受的情况下成功起诉公共机构的疏忽。因此，它建议引入一个新的责任标准：“严重过失”。法律委员会认为它提议的责任制度比现行法律优越上级，因为它将减少索赔人转移公共机构核心关切（提供服务于公共利益的货物和服务）的情况。法律委员会还在“修正的矫正司法原则”中找到了对其提案的支持。根据本文的分析，“严重过失”的要求更好地理解为加强现行法律中对无过失的承诺（在托马斯内格尔所规定的意义上）。本文还主张对过失法进行改革（因为它适用于公共机构），这与法律委员会提出的建议截然不同。这是在Caparo Industries plc诉Dickman一案中谨慎义务检验的第三阶段适用比例原则。更一般地说，这篇文章批评法律委员会的理由是，它假设公共机构有足够的信息来有效地执行广泛的任务。但情况往往并非如此。此外，现行形式的过失法是一种（非市场）发现程序，公共机构可以通过这种程序，在为新的要求辩护时，更好地了解它们运作的环境。
The Law Commission has concluded in a recent consultation paper (‘Administrative Redress’) that claimants are able to sue public bodies successfully in negligence in an unacceptably wide range of circumstances. For this reason, it has proposed the introduction of a new touchstone of liability: ‘serious fault’. The Law Commission regards the liability regime it proposes as superior to the existing law since it would reduce the number of occasions on which claimants deflect public bodies from their core concerns (delivering goods and services that serve the public interest). The Law Commission also finds support for its proposal in a ‘principle of modified corrective justice’. On the analysis offered in this essay, the requirement of ‘serious fault’ is better understood as strengthening a commitment to ruthlessness (in the sense specified by Thomas Nagel) that is present in the existing law. This essay also argues for a reform of negligence law (as it applies to public bodies) that is very different from that proposed by the Law Commission. This is the application of the proportionality principle at the third stage of the duty of care test in Caparo Industries plc v Dickman. More generally, this essay criticises the Law Commission on the ground that it assumes that public bodies have sufficient information to perform a wide range of tasks effectively. This is often not the case. Moreover, negligence law in its existing form is a (non-market) discovery-procedure by means of which public bodies can, when defending novel claims, become better acquainted with the environment in which they operate.