Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-68945f75b7-4zrgc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-05T23:13:05.102Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Interrelation of obligations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 July 2009

Stephen Waddams
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Get access

Summary

In law, as in history, there is a complex interdependence between the particular and the general. Particular instances are analysed and understood in the light of general concepts, but the general concepts themselves have drawn their form and substance from the aggregation of particular instances. The preceding chapters have shown that many legal issues have been resolved not by subordination to a single concept but by the concurrent influence of several. This does not by any means show that concepts have been unimportant (indeed it shows the opposite) nor that they are reducible to a single inscrutable mass, but it does show that they have often interacted with each other, and that they cannot therefore be fully understood without attention to their mutual interdependence. The concepts are distinct, but in respect of many issues they have operated concurrently, influencing each other. Thus, breach of contract has been treated in Anglo-American law (differing in this respect from many other systems) as a wrong, but it cannot be entirely subordinated to the idea of wrongdoing. Even where there is no contract, the disappointment of economic expectations has sometimes been treated as a wrong, but it is not a wrong that can be understood in isolation from other concepts. Taking undue advantage of an inequality of bargaining power, or of a fundamental mistake, or retaining a benefit without rendering an anticipated benefit in exchange may cause unjust enrichments, but the law on these questions cannot be understood in terms of unjust enrichment alone.

Type
Chapter
Information
Dimensions of Private Law
Categories and Concepts in Anglo-American Legal Reasoning
, pp. 142 - 171
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×