![handle is hein.journals/denlj14 and id is 1 raw text is: LORD DENNING'S CONTRIBUTION TO
CONTRACT LAW
P.S. Atiyah*
I don't suppose there are many people present who have suffered the
indignity of being censored by order of the Court of Appeal. It happened to
me in 1981, not, I hasten to add, because of anything I myself said or did,
but because I had the misfortune to take part in a television programme
which was adjudged to fall foul of the law of breach of confidence.
Adjudged, that is, by a majority of the Court of Appeal.' Lord Denning
dissented. In his judgment the Master of the Rolls described the television
programme and had the kindness to say of my modest contribution that it
was all very sensible and straightforward. Ever since then I have felt that
I owe Lord Denning a debt, and I am glad today to be able to repay it, even
if it stretches things a little to say that his contributions to the law were all
very sensible and straightforward. But then my contribution to the
television programme lasted about five minutes, while Lord Denning's
contribution to the law of England was spread over 38 years.
My brief today is to say something about Lord Denning' s contribution to
the law of contract, and I am sure others will speak of Lord Denning the
man. But in assessing his contribution to the law it is right that we pause
for a moment to remember what we are today actually celebrating. After
all, Lord Denning's chief claim to fame rests on his role as a moderniser
and innovator, but we do not usually associate modernisation and
innovation with octogenarians or even septuagenarians. Speaking for
myself, I have to say that as I approach my seventieth year I find the usual
decline in the faculties, both physical and mental, of people of my age a
serious deterrent to understanding and tolerating the modernisation that
goes on around me. Memory begins to fail, case names become elusive,
and the urge for an afternoon nap is often irresistible. But when Lord
Denning was my age he was just getting into his stride as Master of the
Rolls, with fifteen years of judicial creativity still ahead of him. The older I
get the more I marvel that Lord Denning was able to do this job at all.
* Formerly Professor of English Law, Oxford University.
See Schering Chemicals v. Falkman [1981] 2 All E.R. 321.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/denlj14&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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