The Road Ahead for the Common Law

Abstract

In the 1996 Hamlyn Lectures, under the title Turning Points of the Common Law, I examined four great cases where the House of Lords set the law of England, and consequently the law of most of the English-speaking world, on a new course by reversing decisions of the courts below. They were Salomon v Salomon & Co Ltd1 (insistence on separate identities of company and controlling shareholder); Woolmington v Director of Public Prosecutions2 (discovery of a golden thread about onus of proof in English criminal law); Hedley Byrne & Co Ltd v Heller3 (qualified acceptance of duty of care in tort to safeguard against economic damage); and Anisminic Ltd v Foreign Compensation Commission4 (affirmation that material errors of law by administrative bodies are alwaysredressible by courts).