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Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence

Caesar’S Gambit: Coherence, Justification Of Legal Rules, And The Duty Test: Towards An Interactional Theory Of Government Liability For Negligence In Disaster Management, Irehobhude O. Iyioha Jul 2023

Caesar’S Gambit: Coherence, Justification Of Legal Rules, And The Duty Test: Towards An Interactional Theory Of Government Liability For Negligence In Disaster Management, Irehobhude O. Iyioha

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article examines barriers posed by the duty of care test for government liability for negligence in disaster management. It argues that various aspects of the test raise concerns about coherence, legitimacy of judicial decision-making, and ultimately how we justify liability in tort law. In examining the coherence of the duty test through multiple prisms, including through theoretical justifications for tort principles, this article contends that the duty test, in its framing and interpretations, fails to meet the formal and substantive demands of coherence, correctness and legitimacy. Arguing that justificatory theories offer necessary theoretical lenses through which to understand, critique, …


Retrieving Positivism: Law As Bibliolatry, Frederick C. Decoste May 1990

Retrieving Positivism: Law As Bibliolatry, Frederick C. Decoste

Dalhousie Law Journal

Legal positivism is a curious phenomenon in both its theoretical and sociological parts. It is curious as theory because its very existence, as theory, is often questioned, and because, even when its existence is admitted, the nature of the theory, and who does and does not qualify as an adherent most often remains in dispute. It is curious sociologically because rare is the legal theoretician who forthrightly endorses positivism: positivists, it would appear, are as scarce as the formalists among whom they used to be numbered.


Critical Legal Theory And The Politics Of Pragmatism, Peter D. Swan Oct 1989

Critical Legal Theory And The Politics Of Pragmatism, Peter D. Swan

Dalhousie Law Journal

In this century mainstream legal scholarship in the United States has been subjected to various "crises of confidence" over the nature of the adjudication process. One of the key features of more traditional legal scholarship has been a belief in legal texts such as the constitution, statutes and precedents which are said to possess discrete and objective meaning capable of being discovered by objective detached observers. This belief in the authority of the text has been most clearly expressed in American constitutional law scholarship which has been dominated until recently by the quest to reveal the public moral values that …