Charlesworth & Percy on Negligence (15th edition)

For the busy lawyer engaging with the complex field of negligence, Charlesworth & Percy is the best available source for up-to-date, reliable information. This book provides invaluable guidance when dealing with risk assessment, drafting court documents and liability and settlement negotiations.

Mark Armitage, the distinguished general editor of this edition, is supported by an equally distinguished team of associate editors of wide-ranging expertise; necessary in a field with many specialist practice areas. In addition, this is the 15th edition of a book that quickly became regarded as authoritative and has maintained this position. This text is frequently cited in court; Lord Denning in his foreword to the eighth edition described it as ‘the standard work par excellence’.

The format will be familiar, in that the structure and the chapters of the book remain the same. No new chapters have been added, although many significant updates to the law have been incorporated: for example, the challenging Supreme Court decisions of Manchester Building Society v Grant Thornton UK LLP and Khan v Meadows. As Armitage states in the preface: ‘These cases alone have necessitated substantial revisions to chapters 1, 2 and 5, but their influence is more wide-ranging and is felt in most areas of the law of negligence; as such they feature throughout.’ This is another good reason to obtain this edition, which updates guidance in all areas of negligence according to the law as it was at 14 February 2022.

Practitioners will benefit from detailed analysis of up-to-date case law in all areas one would expect to see covered, such as personal injury and clinical negligence, property, product liability, injuries caused by animals and negligence resulting in death.

To comprehensively review this edition would require more space than is available. It is hard to imagine an area of negligence that is not covered. Stephen Todd has even revised and enhanced the guidance on Commonwealth jurisprudence and included relevant case law, demonstrating the exhaustive approach taken throughout this text.

This text is a must-have addition to any legal library.

Roisin O’Dubhlaoidh is a solicitor at RWK Goodman in Bath