Fault: A Common Name for Different Misdeeds
![handle is hein.journals/tulr49 and id is 321 raw text is: FAULT: A COMMON NAME FOR DIFFERENT MISDEEDS
ANDR TUNc*
As Professor Ferdinand Fairfax Stone has remarked, Louisiana
and France have an identical principle in common as the basis of
their law of tort: Every act whatever of man that causes damage
to another, obliges him by whose fault it happened to repair it.2
(Tout fait quelconque de l'homme, qui cause 4 autrui un. dommage,
oblige celui par la faute duquel il est arrivi, & le r parer.) Thus,
in Louisiana, as well as in France, fault is the cornerstone of civil
liability. [Lliability based upon fault has been one of the most
deeply embedded ideas in our legal thought during the past century
and a half.. .4 and Professor Stone, to whom this essay is dedi-
cated, has wisely devoted profound research to the concept.5 While
the conclusions of his article remain fully valid and while the de-
velopments it contains are still as valuable as they were twenty
years ago, additional research is perhaps possible on a point which
has until recently been somewhat overlooked: the variety of be-
haviours to which the label of fault is affixed.
The interest of such a study is far from purely theoretical. The
law of tort is presently jolted by currents and crosscurrents created
by new and powerful institutions surrounding it: liability insur-
ance, personal insurance, social security, and other mutual or col-
lective sources of indemnification. Indeed, its very existence is
threatened in the field of personal injury.7 At a time of deep re-
examination of the values and purposes of tort liability, an analysis
of the behaviours covered under the concept of fault may protect
against excessive generalization and throw some light on the con-
troversy. The interest in the debate is not confined to Louisiana
* Professor of Law, University of Paris-I. Agrdg6 des Facultds de Droit,
1943.
1 Stone, Tort Doctrine in Louisiana: The Concept of Fault, 27 Tul. L. Rev. 1
(1952) [hereinafter cited as Stone].
2 La. Civil Code art. 2315 (1870).
8 C. civ. art. 1382.
4 Stone, supra note 1, at 1.
I Stone, supra, note 1.
6 See two.symposia: Les problames contcmporains de la responsabiliM civile
ddlictuelle, 19 Rev. int. dr. comp. 757 (1967), and Transnational Trends in
Tort Law: Contemporary Roles of the Law of Torts, 18 Am. J. Comp. L. 1
(1970). On the possible ways of harmonizing the various compensation institu-
tions see Fleming, Collateral Benefits, in 11 Int'l Encycl. Comp. L., ch. 11
(1971).
7 See Accident Compensation Act 1972, N.Z. Stat. 521, as amended,
Accident Compensation Amendment Act 1973, N.Z. Stat. 825; Harris, Ac-
cident Compensation in New Zealand: A Comprehensive Insurance System, 37
Modern L. Rev. 361 (1974). Cf. Hellner, The New Swedish Tort Liability Act,
22 Am. J. Comp. L. 1 (1974).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/tulr49&div=21&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Fault: A Common Name for Different Misdeeds
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