Tort law as a legal-realist system

Abstract

P.G. Monateri has written extensively on the law of torts from an Italian and a comparative

perspective1. Our views not always have coincided, but this is due to the fact that die-hard

legal realists like myself tend to be more blunt than nuanced and therefore inevitably create

a mismatch with elegant and intellectually elaborated writings such as those of P.G.

Monateri.

These few pages in no way wish to deepen differences, but simply offer – in a rich and

diverse collection of essays – one of the many views of the law of torts.

A further caveat is necessary.

These pages are inspired by a minimalistic approach and try to lay down, very succinctly,

the conclusions the author believes he has reached in four decades of studying, writing,

and practicing tort law.

The approach – I apologise from the beginning – is legal-realist, but when as a young

researcher has been struck by the intellectual wand of Jerome Frank, Karl Llewellyn, Alf

Ross and, in Italy, of Gino Gorla, Giovanni Tarello and Guido Alpa, that imprinting is

impossible to dispel.