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Discusses the plaintiff's illegal act as a defense in actions of tort. Overview on cases in which physical damage has been done to the plaintiff's person or property through the defendant's negligent acts or omissions; Radical difference between the cause of an accident and the blame for its; Background on the case of Bosworth v. Swansey.

The article focuses on the legal treatment of infringement of rights. Such wrongs are divisible into two classes, namely, torts and breaches of obligation. A tort is disobedience to a command of the State, and is affirmative or negative, according as the command is negative or affirmative, the tort being in that respect the converse of the command. The State commands every person within its limits to do no act which will infringe an absolute right of any other person. It follows, therefore, that every infringement of an absolute right is an affirmative tort, and that every affirmative tort is an infringement of an absolute right.

Presents reviews of court cases that were recent in May 1900. Negligence of an independent contractor employed by the defendant to tear down a building which resulted in damage to the plaintiff's building; Wrongful sale to an innocent purchaser; Ruling that an application by an insolvent corporation for the appointment of a receiver under a state law is not an act of bankruptcy.

Discusses the doctrine of volenti non fit injuria in actions of negligence. Proper relations of the doctrine, including that to duty; Courses of action of a plaintiff in an action of tort for negligence; Development of the doctrine; Application under the restricted form known as Employee's Risk; Limits of the doctrine.

The article reports that the law of negligence and, indeed, every other part of the law of torts which involves the reasonable character of the conduct of either of the litigants, has within the last fifty years been subjected to an intensive analysis, primarily by law teachers but also with gratifying frequency in judicial opinions. The concept of that ideal creature, the reasonable man, has been examined and re-examined almost ad nauseam. It has become an accepted doctrine that the propriety of one's conduct depends not only upon the advantage which one gains and the harm which one intends or is likely to do to others, but also upon interests of society in general, or rather upon what are at the time conceived to be such interests.

This article presents information related to tort and absolute liability. There are, as yet, no unanimously approved rules or criteria whereby to determine whether a particular user or act falls under this head of acting at peril. The highest English court some fifty years ago, in Rylands v. Fletcher, undertook to lay down the so-called Blackburn Rule. Before stating this rule, or considering its correctness, it should be said that, according to the weight of modern authority, it was unnecessary in that case to decide whether the defendants could be held liable irrespective of negligence.

The article presents information on the trespassers in the U.S. By the Michigan rule the fact that the trespasser's presence is known has an important relation to the burden of conduct imposed upon the landowner. He is thereafter bound to exercise ordinary care with reference to the intruder. Where the owner or occupant discovers a trespasser upon the premises, he is not beyond the pale of the law, and any negligence resulting in injury will render the person guilty of negligence liable to respond in damages. By the Massachusetts rule, as usually stated, he is under no such obligation, his sole duty being to abstain from intentional injury. The conduct, which creates a liability to a trespasser in cases of this kind, has been referred to in the books in a variety of ways.

The article discusses the question that when does the violation of a criminal statute or ordinance make the wrongdoer civilly responsible in the U.S. Criminal statutes may be classified in all sorts of ways, according to the point of view from which the matter is approached. One basis of classification, however, naturally suggests itself when civil responsibility is under discussion, that is, the distinction between a statute, which forbids an act, and one, which requires affirmative action. This corresponds with a fundamental distinction in the law of torts, and as different principles are involved it will be well to deal separately with these two classes of statutes--those prohibiting action and those requiring action.

The article presents information on the English Workmen's Compensation Act. The initial English Workmen's Compensation Act, enacted in 1897, takes a wholly new departure. It takes the new line of creating a duty on the part of employers to compensate workmen for accidental damage, irrespective of any fault on the part of their employers or their fellow servants. There is no need to prove any negligence of employers; and the workman loses his right by nothing short of his own serious and willful misconduct being the cause of the accident. The act covers personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of the employment. The workman is not allowed full damages; his recovery being limited to partial compensation, which is generally proportioned to the wages, he received.

The article focuses on principles of torts. The beginning of the modern action for deceit was only twenty years earlier in 1789; there was no conception of the now-recognized principle that one who, without excuse, causes expectable harm to another is liable. Combining the principle that one has no duty to aid another with the rule that a gratuitous promise is not binding, it would have appeared that one who does nothing other than to make a non-binding promise would not be responsible for the harm resulting from his undertaking and his failure to perform.

Discusses Texas statute absolving tortfeasors from liability for negligence in rendering aid during emergency. Intent of the law to protect the bystander who gives help; Justification for the statute; Scope and application of the statute.