In the task just completed, we identified the legal rules that need to be applied
to determine the legal position of the parties. To stress the point about this
operation, as this stage it is not said that the initiating party will definitely
succeed if they invoke these rules. Instead it is asserted simply that these rules
are worth serious consideration.
For the purposes of further illustration we continue to assume that the question
says: “Advise Arthur”. Let us now also assume that when the relevant law has
been ascertained and a preliminary evaluation made about the actions to be
considered, there are the following results:
(1)
Arthur v Betty. Arthur should consider suing Betty for trespass to land
and trespass to goods.
(2)
Betty v Arthur. There is no feasible action that Betty can bring against
Arthur.
(3)
Arthur v Clare. There is no feasible action that Arthur can bring against
Clare.
(4)
Clare v Arthur. Clare should consider suing Arthur for false
imprisonment, negligence and defamation.
Framework II
The work in identifying the possible or feasible causes of action can be used
to develop the framework further. Two kinds of change are needed to upgrade
the framework. First, with two permutations of parties, Betty v Arthur and
Arthur v Clare, there are no feasible causes of action. Therefore these
permutations need to be deleted from the framework. Second, there are
feasible causes of action for the other two permutations, namely Arthur v Betty
and Clare v Arthur. These causes of action need to be added to the
framework.
When both of these alterations are made, the amended framework takes the
following form:
Arthur v Betty
Trespass to Land
Trespass to Goods
Clare v Arthur
Negligence
False Imprisonment
Defamation
Figure 28.5 Parties and Causes of Action
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