A Public Role for the Intentional Torts

Recent years have seen wide-ranging debates on the nature of tort law. For some, tort law is firmly placed within private law: it is concerned with the rights individuals have against each other and with the legal implications of the violation of those rights. Others emphasise the extent to which broad social considerations enter into the determination of tort liability and the many ways in which tort law today serves a public role that is ill-explained by the private law model. Given the centrality of negligence in contemporary tort law, much of this debate focused on this tort, but recent litigation that culminated in the House of Lords' decision in Ashley v Chief Constable of Sussex Police1 and some academic commentary relating to it provide an opportunity for examining these questions in the context of the intentional torts.