A new legal research group launched at Western Law will provide a forum to stimulate further research and greater collaboration in the field of tort law.
Tort law is a primary part of private law and the law of obligations that provides compensation not only for personal injuries and property damage but also for pure economic losses, environmental harm and psychiatric illness.
“We are very excited about the creation of this research group,” says professor Stephen Pitel, who, along with professors Jason Neyers and Erika Chamberlain, is a member of the group’s initial executive committee.
“Western Law has been hosting some important conferences and producing leading scholarship in tort law for many years. This group provides a platform from which we can expand our reach.”
The Tort Law Research Group will disseminate research in Canada and throughout the common law world, not only to scholars but also to the judiciary, government and practising lawyers. Western students will have new opportunities to study emerging and interdisciplinary issues in tort law.
The group will capitalize on the depth of Western Law’s expertise and reputation in tort law. Emeritus Professor Gerald Fridman has long been one of Canada’s foremost tort law scholars and one-quarter of all Western Law’s current faculty teach or publish in the area of tort law.
Several of these professors are working on a new edition of a leading treatise, The Law of Torts in Canada, and a leading casebook, Cases and Materials on the Law of Torts.
Thanks to an initial contribution from Research Western, the Tort Law Research Group will launch a series of workshops which will allow members to discuss their research. It will also establish a speaker series to draw leading tort law scholars to Western.
Over the next two years the group will organize a major private law conference, to be held July 18-20, 2012, at the Ivey Spencer Leadership Centre. The conference is the sixth biannual obligations law conference (Obligations VI) and the theme is “Challenging Orthodoxy.”
