Foundations of Private Law Property, Tort, Contract, Unjust Enrichment

Foundations of Private Law is a treatise on the Western law of property, contract, tort and unjust enrichment in both common law systems and civil law systems. The thesis of the book is that underlying these fields of law are common principles, and that these principles can be used to explain the history and development of these areas. These underlying common principles are matters of common sense, which were given their archetypal expression by older jurists who wrote in the Aristotelian tradition. These principles shaped the development of Western law but can resolve legal problems which these older writers did not confront.

1 - Basic Principles
2 - Differences among Legal Systems
3 - Possession and Ownership
4 - The Extent of the Right to Use Property: Nuisance, Troubles de voisinage, and Immissionenrecht
5 - Private Modification of the Right to use Property: Servitudes
6 - Rights Annexed to the Use of Property: The Case of Water Rights
7 - Loss of Resources without the Owner's Consent: Necessity and Adverse Possession
8 - Acquisition of Resources without a Prior Owner's Consent: Minerals, Capture, Found Property
9 - The Structure of the Modern Civil and Common Law of Torts
10 - The Defendant's Conduct: Intent, Negligence, Strict Liability
11 - Liability in Tort for Harm to Reputation, Dignity, Privacy, and 'Personality'
12 - Liability in Tort for Pure Economic Loss
13 - Promises
14 - Mistake
15 - Impossibility and Unexpected Circumstances
16 - Promises to Make a Gift
17 - Promises to Exchange
18 - Liability for Breach of Contract
19 - The Principle against Unjustified Enrichment
20 - Restitution without Enrichment?
20 - Remedies in Restitution

James Gordley received a B.A (1967) and M.B.A. (1968) from the University of Chicago and a J.D. (1970) from Harvard Law School. After a year in private practice and a fellowship in Italy, he became Ezra Ripley Thayer Fellow at Harvard Law School and then fellow at the Medieval Institute of Canon Law at Berkeley, he joined the Berkeley Law Faculty in 1978 where he became a full professor in 1981, and Shannon Cecil Turner Professor of Jurisprudence in 1996. He is currently Co-Editor in Chief of the American Journal of Comparative Law, a member titulaire of the International Academy of Comparative Law, a member of the Consulting Board of The European Review of Contract Law, and a member of the Board of Editors, Trento Project on the Common Core of European Law.