Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/355

335 A PROPOSED NEW DEFINITION OF A TORT. 335 A PROPOSED NEW DEFINITION OF A TORT. NOT only in Jurisprudence, but in its sister sciences, for instance, Ethics and Economics, do we find striking illustrations of the truth that it is concerning the most fundamental and far- reaching definitions, that there exists the most doubt and dispute. Although acts such as we call torts have been committed since the dawn of the idea of the existence of rights as between man and man, yet the development of anything like a clearly formu- lated conception of a tort is surprisingly recent. Thus, so late as 1886 it was said by Sir Frederick Pollock that " if the collec- tion of rules which we call the law of torts is founded on any gen- eral principles of duty and liability, those principles have nowhere been stated with authority." ^ But it seems to us to'scarcely remain true, as stated by the same authority, that " the want of authoritative principles (/. e., on this subject) appears to have been felt as a want by hardly any one." ^ The necessity of establishing such principles is rapidly being forced upon us by decisions involving modern conditions,^ thus, decisions relating to strikes and boycotts. But these very decisions seem to us to furnish the material for constructing a satisfactory definition of a tort We need not dwell at length on previous attempts to define a tort. The New York Court of Appeals has complained of its inability "to find any accurate and perfect definition of a tort."* Mr. Addison in his elaborate treatise entirely avoids definition thereof. Sir Frederick Pollock defines it as " an act or omission giving rise, in virtue of the common law jurisdiction of the court, to a civil remedy which is not an action of contract." ^ Professoi Jaggard in his recently published treatise, says that " the above definition of Mr. Pollock, while a negative one, seems to be least unsuccessful and unsatisfactory."^ Judge Cooley thinks that the 1 Pollock, Torts, 4. 2 Pollock, Torts, 5. 8 See, for instance, Mogul Steamship Co. v. McGregor, [1892] App. Cas. 25; Allen V. Flood, [1898] App. Cas. i. 6 Pollock, Torts, 4. « Jaggard, Torts, i. 2.
 * Rich V. N. Y. Central, &c., R. R. Co., 87 N. Y. 382, 390 (1882, Finch, J.).