Talk:Privity in English law

Nice work

Nice work on this so far. Can you incorporate the cases I've listed in some way? I think it'd be good to have part on contract and tort. Also there's those complicated exclusion clause transfer cases, which I think need to be explained well. And I think that privity is definitely the same thing as consideration (or an inseparable part of the doctrine). What do you think? Wikidea 13:36, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I think that my opinion doesn't matter, it's down to the sources and what they say. I've got some more stuff to work in, and I'll try and put your cases in as well when I've got a mo (I'm actually working a breach of contract case at work, ironically, which is cutting into my time to write about contract). Ironholds (talk) 13:55, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Well sure it wouldn't change the way you wrote, I'd hope. But I'm still interested to know what you think (not that you have to have a view!). Consideration must move from the promisee seems to be the rule in Tweddle. It doesn't make sense to have a doctrine of consideration, of course, if you can enforce a bargain to which you've brought nothing of economic value yourself. Then, I wonder, maybe the doctrine of consideration itself is a bad bargain... Wikidea 23:59, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

A lot of people see consideration as a bad element of contract law, yes. I'd say privity probably is a sub-element of consideration - most case law has dealt with it on those grounds (beswick, for example - she was allowed to enforce it as the executrix because she was acting as the agent of someone who had provided consideration). Ironholds (talk) 06:15, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Privity in English law/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Mkativerata

I'm going to review this because the subject matter is up my alley, I have access to a few of the sources, and its been unreviewed for some time now. As an initial comment, it's great to see that the article sticks to secondary sources. In my view, some "legal concept" articles stray well into the territory of original research by directly citing (ie analysing) case law as sources for particular propositions. I will be doing a more detailed review over the next few days. --Mkativerata (talk) 02:24, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks kindly! I've often seen it; one law editor who dabbles IRL actually remarked that textbooks aren't valid sources for working out what a particular case decided! Absurd, but there you have it. Ironholds (talk) 19:55, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Here are my comments - just a few small issues to resolve:

1. Well written

• There are some MOS issues, particularly:
  • the use of hyphens instead of em dashes or colons; and
  • gender neutral language (except when quoting directly from a judgment)

But these MOS issues are not relevant to the GA criteria.

• Some minor issues for fixing:

**In what court was Tweddle v Atkinson decided? This might be useful to the reader as it seems to have settled a 200 year dispute.

• • • No idea, I'm afraid. I'd hazard a guess at the Court of Common Pleas, since that was where common disputes went, but under the Writ of Quominus (my article) the Court of Exchequer could handle the cases; the Court of King's Bench developed a similar legal fiction.

**”Detel paint” - better as “paint produced by Detel Products”? This is the first time we hear of Detel.

• • • Done. Ironholds (talk) 19:55, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

**”An agency relationship is between three parties - A principal...” “A principal” should be decapitalised.

• • • Fixed. Ironholds (talk) 19:55, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

**”an Act/act of Parliament”. When referring to an Act/act generally, as opposed to a specific act, make the capitalisation consistent throughout.

• • • Fixed.Ironholds (talk) 19:55, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

**Likewise, when referring to a specific act (eg “the full provisions of the act” vs “Section 1 of the Act”), capitalise consistently.

• • • Fixed.Ironholds (talk) 19:55, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

**Footnotes 10, 13, 15 and 16 aren't linked to the bibliography but the rest are.

• • • Done. Ironholds (talk) 19:55, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
• Some prose that could be imprroved (eg redundant words), but doesn't have to be fixed here as I think it meets the GA standard of “clear”
• The lead section is very good.

2. Factually accurate and verifiable

• As stated above, the use of secondary sources is excellent. A wide range is used. I have only been able to access Treitel (2003) and AGF use of the others.
• A few minor issues:
  • ”For this reason, various sociological or economic arguments have been used.”: doesn't seem to be supported by footnote 10 as Atiyah seems to give only one sociological or economic argument.

    Fixed. Ironholds (talk) 19:38, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

  • ”These exceptions, however, were extremely limited in how they could be used.”: perhaps a valid summary of what comes below, but without a source, it seems to be commentary, especially with the “extremely”.

    Fixed. Ironholds (talk) 19:38, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

  • ”and in light of the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 the use of this is likely to decrease”: I think it would be better to say something like “has been predicted to decrease”.

    Fixed. Ironholds (talk) 19:38, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

  • ”Certain elements of the doctrine of agency do clash with privity” - better as “have been said to clash”?

    Fixed. Ironholds (talk) 19:38, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

  • ”This was first established in Donoghue v Stevenson” I couldn't find a reference to this in the Treitel source.

    Odd. I have a new edition of the book (published 07, I think); I may have accidentally picked that up. In any case, since I can't verify (I'm at uni, and ironically have no access to my stockpile of contract textbooks) I've cut that out. Ironholds (talk) 19:38, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

    • That makes sense - I had noticed there was a 2007 version. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:56, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

3. Coverage

• The article is an appropriate length for the subject and achieves an appropriate balance between the common law and legislation.

4. Neutral

• No issues here. The impression given to the reader is that privity is a bad doctrine, but that's not because of any POV in the article. It's all well-sourced and balanced.

5. Stable

• Yes.

6. Images

• None would be appropriate.

--Mkativerata (talk) 19:33, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

All done, and passed. Top stuff. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:56, 29 January 2010 (UTC)