TORT AND ABSOLUTE LIABILITY -- SUGGESTED CHANGES IN CLASSIFICATION.

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.