Illegal Claims in Tort

What relevance is the illegal conduct of the claimant to a tort claim? As part of a comparative multi-author volume, I have been trying to work out why it matters, if ever, and why that mattering is expressed in the way it is in different legal systems. For example, common law legal systems have developed a separate defence of "illegality", sometimes called "ex turpi causa non oritur actio" to address such facts, using it to defeat some, but not all, claims founded in illegality. But most civilian jurisdictions have not created such a defence, and are in some places more permissive about the claims that can proceed. However, many such claims are still prevented from proceeding by the use of other doctrines, particularly in respect of unlawfulness, fault, causation and rules for quantifying loss. And some fact patterns that have been litigated in common law courts seem not to have appeared at all in many civilian jurisdictions.

An interesting study on one part of tort law, as an example of private law reasoning, turns out to unlock some fundamental structural and reasoning elements of many legal systems. The seminar is a chance to engaged on a few of the early findings, as the project moves towards publication.