Volume XI: Torts | Chapter 1 (1974): Introduction

1. The paradoxical situation of the law of tort in industrialized countries. – In most industrialized countries, the law of tort is at the moment in a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, there has been a great increase in the number of civil liability suits, in their variety, in the amounts they involve, and an “abrupt change” of the rules which govern them.¹ This is attributable in part to the enormous increase in the number of accidental personal injuries, as a result of the “industrial revolution”; the safety…