Private Law Theory

Paul S Davies, Accessory Liability, Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2015, 294 pp, hb £54.99. There are numerous examples within private law where a third party can be held liable for playing a role in another person’s breach of duty. This can be relevant in claims such as ‘dishonest assistance’ and ‘inducing a breach of contract’. The language of each of these forms of liability seems to imply that they focus on different types of involvement. For example, assistance is not necessarily synonymous with inducement. This has resulted in ‘pockets’ of third party liability, whereby there are separate formulations of third party liability depending on the primary wrong (a crime or a breach of duty committed by another person). Nonetheless, it has been suggested by a number of commentators that it is possible to draw together claims against those who involve themselves with primary wrongs under the concept of ‘accessory liability’. Paul Davies’ book, Accessory Liability, provides a welcome analysis which seeks to provide coherence to ‘accessory liability’ by demonstrating that a unified approach can be used to determine the way in which such cases are treated …

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David Salmons, ‘Dishonest Assistance and Accessory Liability’, Modern Law Review volume 80, issue 1, January 2017, pages 133–152.

First posted 2017-01-06 08:29:23