Law Quarterly Review, The

First published in 1885, the Law Quarterly Review provides authoritative and critical analysis on a broad range of legal issues. It is widely acclaimed as a leading platform for scholarly legal debate in the UK and throughout the common law world.

• With four issues a year, the Law Quarterly Review keeps readers up-to-date with many important legal developments.
• The Law Quarterly Review is committed to providing a balanced coverage of developments in the common law world.
• Issues covered are relevant to both academics and practitioners.

Recent Coverage

In 2024, the L.Q.R. continued to pursue an important element of its policy by publishing 24 notes relating to recent court decisions or to other legal developments, in particular statutory ones. It should be noted that a number of them dealt, principally, with developments other than under English law. The notes included the following contributions (with one example taken from each of the four issues):

1. Mr. Samuel Leung on PT Asuransi Tugu Pratama Indonesia TBK v Citibank NA (2023) 26 HKCFAR 1, a case, though principally concerned with limitation periods, also dealing with several fundamental issues including the test of apparent authority, the scope of the Quincecare duty (see Barclays Bank Plc v Quincecare Ltd [1992] 4 All E.R. 363) and the prerequisite of terminating a banking relationship. Though a Hong Kong decision, this was clearly a case that had considerable significance for English lawyers (see (2024) 140 L.Q.R. 27).
2. Professor Paul S. Davies on Secretary of State for the Home Department v Cox [2023] EWCA Civ 551, in which case the Court of Appeal had to consider an important issue with regard to section 1 of the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999. That issue relates to the strength of the presumption that a third party upon whom the contracting parties purport to confer a benefit may enforce against them the term that so confers it. By majority (Underhill L.J. and Lewis L.J., with Stuart-Smith L.J. dissenting), it was held that the presumption in question was, on the facts, rebutted, this being the first appellate case on the section to reach such a conclusion (see (2024) 140 L.Q.R. 171).
3. Professor Robert Stevens on Paul v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust [2024] UKSC 1, where the Supreme Court of Appeal addressed the issue of whether or not, where a doctor fails to diagnose a life-threatening medical condition and the patient subsequently dies because of the lack of treatment, relatives who witness the death, then suffer psychiatric injury as a result, may recover damages from the doctor. In short, do doctors owe relatives a duty of care to protect them? By a majority of six to one (Lord Burrows dissenting), the court ruled in favour of the three patients who brought their claims (see (2024) 140 L.Q.R. 346).
4. Dr. Alexander Waghorn on Armstead v Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Company Ltd [2024] UKSC 6, which concerned a very difficult issue with regard to remoteness of loss in the law of negligence. Though the Supreme Court was unanimous in ruling that the loss in question was not too remote, that ruling was made in the face of rulings at both first instance and in the Court of Appeal the other way (see (2024) 140 L.Q.R. 502).

As regards articles published in 2024, the L.Q.R. continued to publish pieces on widely divergent aspects of the law. Examples showing the variety of topics covered are (again with one example taken from each of the four issues):

1. “A Pluralist View of Vicarious Liability in Tort” by Dr. Marco Cappelletti (2024) 140 L.Q.R. 61, dealing with what he argues is the academically favoured notion that a monist view of vicarious liability in Tort should be sought out, and proposing, rather, that the English law as to such liability has a sound theoretical basis, not in a stand-alone rationale, but in a mixture of goals, or functions, which are reflected in its constituent elements and which are the object of significant choices and trade-offs.
2. “A Principal’s Mental Incapacity and ‘Termination’ of the Agent’s Authority” by Dr. Rachel Leow (2024) 140 L.Q.R. 250, in which it is argued that the orthodox view, as established by Yonge v Toynbee [1910] 1 K.B. 215, that termination of the authority of an agent comes about automatically where the principal loses their mental capacity is problematic and ought to be superseded by a doctrine allowing for flexibility in catering for the different situations in which the argument for termination arises in that context.
3. “Judicial Review and Guidance” by Professor Tom Hickman and Professor Thomas Poole (2024) 140 L.Q.R. 381, arguing that insufficient attention has been paid by administrative lawyers to the way in which administrative rules have moved increasingly to centre stage in public law and that their variety and complexity needs to be attended to more seriously by legal scholars in the United Kingdom.
4. “Black Marbles, Blue Buses and Yellow Submarines” by Lord Leggatt (2024) 140 L.Q.R. 570, which starts off with the orthodox view that the standard of proof in civil cases, namely the balance of probabilities, is a straightforward concept, but goes on to argue that that is far from the truth and that it gives rise to some intriguing questions about the nature of probability and proof.

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Editorial Correspondence:

General Editor:
Professor Peter Mirfield
Jesus College
Oxford
OX1 3DW

Book Review Editor:
Dr Hayley J. Hooper
Harris Manchester College
Mansfield Road
Oxford
OX1 3TD

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Sohini Banerjee
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