Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2024
Abstract
How does private law conceptualize duties owed to the public-at-large? Are they owed to individual members of the public? This question is interstitial in two ways—it concerns both the space between public law and private law and the spaces between different fields of private law. Different areas of private law handle it in contradictory ways. Duties of public officials are regarded as owed to individual citizens for the purposes of contract law’s preexisting duty rule but as not owed to individuals as a matter of tort law’s public duty rule. Violations of public property might be enforceable through public nuisance, but violations of analogous public contracts might not be enforceable by citizens. After describing the problem, this chapter surveys possible answers. Ultimately, the chapter suggests that a distinction between exercise of control and ex post injury might best explain the variable treatment of public duties in private law.
Publication Information & Recommended Citation
Cornell, Nicolas. "Duties Owed to the Public." In Interstitial Private Law, edited by Samuel L. Bray, John C. P. Goldberg, Paul B. Miller, and Henry E. Smith, 19-40. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197783627.003.0002
Comments
This material was originally published in Interstitial Private Law edited by Samuel L. Bray, John C. P. Goldberg, Paul B. Miller, and Henry E. Smith and has been reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press. For permission to reuse this material, please visit http://global.oup.com/academic/rights