OF THE

LAW OF TORTS

BY

EDWIN A. JAGGARD, A. M., LL. B.
Professor of the Law of Torts in the Law School of the University of Minnesota

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. I

ST. PAUL, MINN.

WEST PUBLISHING CO.

LIBRARY OF THE LELAND STANFORD JR. UNIVERSITY. A27749

COPYRIGHT, 1895,

BY

WEST PUBLISHING COMPANY.

SLL 9

To

MY FATHER AND MOTHER.

Non vobis, eheu!

Sed memoria care vestra.

(iii)*

PREFACE.

In this day, when of the making of books there is no end, it is becoming, as is said in a famous American medical treatise, that the producer of a new book should assign its raison d'etre.

One purpose of this book is to use and apply such portions of what is known as "Jurisprudence" as are especially relevant to the subject of Torts. John Austin, according to the Saturday Review, "was, with the single exception of Jeremy Bentham, the only Englishman of any considerable ability who ever made the study of Jurisprudence proper the object of his life." Mr. Holland has certainly joined this goodly company. And the labors of Gordon Campbell and Robert Campbell (supplementary to Austin), and of Sheldon Amos, have contributed materially to the advancement of this branch of legal knowledge. The enormous quantity of matter daily ground out by the mills of the law is making it necessary that the practitioner, as well as the student, should again resort to the first principles. The multitude of current authorities increases the necessity of a corrected analysis, and demands a better classification of the law. There is little hope of progression in this direction from its discussion under heads of concrete objects, as dogs, horses, bicycles, ice, beer, shillalahs, or the like. While there is not unanimity of opinion on the subject, there is every indication that the future development of the law will be, if not along the line on which these distinguished thinkers have worked, at least with increasing reference to the results of their labors. In the law of Torts, this tendency is manifest conspicuously in one of the ablest (Pigott's) and the most original (Innes') of the modern books on the subject.

Another purpose of this book has been to develop the general law of Torts as distinguished from the law of specific or isolated wrongs, and to then apply the general principles thus evolved to torts with conventional names. Specific torts were among the earliest subjects of judicial cognizance. Trespass to lands and persons, libel and slander, conspiracy, and nuisance, are among the oldest heads of the com