Tort Law and How It’s Tied to Culture

by M. Stuart Madden, Esq.
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book review by Peter M. Fitzpatrick

"“…tort-type law, we can see that principles of economic efficiency have always been a part and parcel of civil remediations of wrongful harm."

In his highly informative work, the author posits that as soon as small social groups began to coalesce, man devised methodologies to maintain order by enforcing customs, norms, and peace through rules preventing such wrongs as theft, assault, battery, and negligence, to name a few. Written codes like that of Hammurabi and King Ur Nammu were the first known written laws, but it was the Greek penchant for myths such as those written down by Hesiod that led later Greek philosophers like Socrates and Plato to devise detailed reasons for laws as the highest "good." The Roman law of twelve tables was revised by Solon and later expanded into the Codes, Institutes, and Digests (Pandects) of Justinian I that became practical customary law.