Profs. Lewis Klar and Cameron Jefferies publish seventh edition of Tort Law

Over half a decade since the book’s last iteration, Professor Emeritus Lewis Klar, KC, and  Professor Cameron Jefferies have returned with Tort Law, Seventh Edition (Thomson Reuters). 

The two authors from the University of Alberta Faculty of Law have given the text a crucial update for the contemporary Canadian legal landscape.

“It is a privilege to work on a book project that is used in classrooms and courtrooms across the country,” says Jefferies, who also co-authored the sixth edition.

Klar wrote the first edition of Tort Law in 1990, and the text has since become the Canadian standard used by students, lawyers and judges. 

“The seventh edition contains important updates on several areas of tort law,” he notes, “in particular the recovery of pure economic losses and the duty of care formula for negligence actions.”

The book also takes deep dives into recent Canadian court decisions, including: public authority tort liability with reference to proximity and the policy/operational dichotomy discussed by the Supreme Court in Nelson (City) v. Marchi; tort of public nuisance as explained by the British Columbia Court of Appeal in British Columbia v. Apotex; and the Ontario Court of Appeal’s Florence v. Benzaquen decision involving claims for "wrongful life." Other highlights in the seventh edition include product liability actions against gun manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies, anti-SLAPP motions and other defamation issues, new privacy torts, recovery of damages for mental injuries, the tort of harassment and occupier’s liability cases. 

Lewis Klar, KC, is a professor emeritus at the University of Alberta, where he specialized in tort law. He was Dean of the Faculty of Law from 1997 to 2002.

Cameron Jefferies is a professor of Law at the University of Alberta, where he specializes in international and domestic environmental law and energy law.