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GAZETTE
SEPTEMBER 1990
chapter may perhaps include
reference also to the Commission
rulings in the
Irish Distillers Group
pic
takeover.
It is hoped that future releases
may also refer to some recent
developments in the UK including
the latest chapter in the sagas of
House of Fraser
and
British
Aerospace/Rover
as well as the
application of the judicial review
mechanism (equivalent to that
under Order 84 in Ireland) to the
Take-Over Panel building on such
cases as
Fx p. Datafin
[1987] 1 All
ER 564, CA, and
Ex p. Guinness
[1989] 1 All ER 509, CA, both of
which are considered in the text.
The Fifth Edition of Weinberg &
Blank does not come cheap but it
is indispensable for those dealing
with the subject in the UK or (as in
virtually all cases) having even a
connection with the UK. For the
reasons enumerated above it will
prove of considerable value to Irish
lawyers advising even on purely
domestic cases and its relevance
and usefulness to Irish lawyerswill
increase all the more as the tide of
Companies legislation inspired by
Brussels gathers pace and a fortiori
if there should be a major legislative
reform of financial services in
Ireland as has been advocated by
some.
Patrick J.C. McGovern
I R I SH LAW OF DAMAGES
By J o hn P. White. 2 vols,
IRC80 . 00. Butterworths.
There are now few areas of legal
jurisprudence in this jurisdiction
where the academic or practitioner
cannot turn to an Irish textbook for
guidance. With the publication of
Dr. White's 2 volume work, the
"Irish Law of Damages", this
category is further reduced. Indeed
there has been a virtual deluge of
legal "homegrown" texts produced
in the last few years and it is
important that this area, which for
so many practitioners is a large part
of their practice, is now covered.
Dr. White's approach to the
subject is to divide it into 2
volumes. Broadly Volume 1 is an
examination of the philosophical
tenets which underlie our law of
damages and an analysis of its
range and breadth in the light of
this examination. His approach
might be deemed "academic", in
the perjorative sense, by some
practitioners. However, in order to
grasp the essence of, and to
understand fully, such concepts as
remoteness, foreseeability, and miti-
gation it is imperative to start from
first principles. Too often, it seems,
practitioners leave their jurispru-
dential equipment behind them
when they qualify, feeling it is of
little real relevance or assistance in
their day to day practice. This view
is rightly challenged head on by Dr.
White's work.
He is not afraid to point out areas
where a more coherent approach
should be adopted which would
necessitate, in some cases,
statutory intervention to deal with
glaring injustices and imbalances in
the system. One such area where
he argues for a new approach is
that of recovery for wrongful death.
Having pointed out the injustices
and shortcomings of the current
legal position he presents a coher-
ent, well thought out and con-
structive set of solutions. As he
points out, these may not all be
taken on board by judges but
should start a debate on the subject
and indeed set the agenda for such
a debate.
Volume 2 is a classified guide to
the levels of quantum of damages
for non pecuniary loss arising from
personal injury starting with what
are termed "catastrophic injuries"
such as paraplegia and moving on
to cover injury to various regions
and parts of the human anatomy in
considerable detail. In so doing, Dr.
White has unearthed an amount of
previously unpublished Supreme
Court case law dealing, in parti-
cular, with quantum and the level
of damages then considered
appropriate for different types of
injuries. Such decisions were
largely unavailable when juries
were still involved in personal injury
cases in the High Court owing to
the fact that the views of the
Supreme Court could not be
disclosed to these juries. Dr. White
was allowed access to the
Supreme Court records by the
Chief Justice and has used these
together with the few written
judgments that exist.
The result is to offer real guid-
ance in the task of trying to
establish some parameters for
similar types of injury and the level
of damages which should be
awarded. He is careful to point out
the pre-eminent principles of
having special regard to the
peculiar facts of each case and that
the facts are not fact until so found
by the trial judge.
There will be a need for a con-
stant update of this extremely
valuable guide and it is to be hoped
that Dr. White will devote at least
some of his considerable energies
to this task. What his research does
illustrate is the urgency of a com-
prehensive and up to date system
of reporting of our jurisprudence in
this area as in others. Without this
the system remains open to
accusations of disparity, imbalance
and lack of precision when setting
levels of awards of damages.
Dr. White's work is to be highly
recommended and should be com-
pulsory reading for all lawyers
working in the area.
Geraldine M. Clarke
THE COMMON LAW
TRAD I T I ON
Edited by J . F . McEldowney
and Paul O'Higgins, [Irish
Academic Press. 1990.
248pp. £27.50. Hardback].
Professor Francis Headon Newark,
a former holder of the Chair of Civil
Law in the Queen's University of
Belfast, hoped in 1947 that one day
Ireland might have its Reeves or
Holdsworth: (1947) 7 N.I.L.Q. 121.
However, Professor Newark cor-
rectly noted that it would not be an
easy task to write the legal history
of Ireland. Professor Newark
referred sadly to June 30, 1922,
when the Four Courts was
destroyed with the result that "the
charred remains of the legal records
were literally scattered over the
City of Dublin."
The editors of
The Common Law
Tradition
in their joint essay "The
Common Law tradition and Irish
legal history" in paying tribute to
Professor Paul O'Higgins note that
the O'Higgins Bibliographies help to
destroy the myth that all was lost
in the fire in the Four Courts in
Dublin. The select bibliography in
The Common Law Tradition
further
proves that many fruitful sources
do exist for Irish legal historical
research.
The editors refer to the lack of
legal historical scholarship and
decry the lack of financial and
262