To the annoyance of students and academics alike, the law of tort contains a number of awkward heads of liability which defy classification except under “Miscellaneous” or some similar rubric. This article explores one such: the action on the case for damage to the plaintiffs reversionary interest in a chattel. This oddly obscure head, of liability does not even have a generally-accepted name (in this article it is christened, for brevity, “reversionary damage”). It is traditionally dismissed by the text-books in a paragraph or two; the leading cases on it are rarely cited; and yet in practice it is a highly important aspect of the law of personal property without which the owner's protection would be seriously incomplete.

The Government is keen to get “back to basics” about divorce. The Green Paper which the Lord Chancellor presented to Parliament in December 1993 invites us all to reflect on family values and is intended to provoke a “thorough national consideration” of the whole basis for divorce. It follows proposals by the Law Commission but is less than a ringing endorsement of the Commission's scheme. The Law Commission has advocated a shift from the current “mixed” system (embracing fault and no-fault grounds) to an entirely no-fault basis for divorce. Under these proposals divorce would be regarded as a neutral “process over time” and would not entail judgments into the causes of marriage breakdown. While the Green Paper gives qualified support to this idea, the Government has yet to reach a concluded view.

The capacity of the common law to develop and evolve is well recognised within both private and public law. This is indeed one of its enduring qualities. The objective of the present article is not, however, to contribute to the jurisprudential debate concerning the nature of the adjudicative process at common law. My object is more modest. It is to consider and place in perspective some of the recent developments which have occurred at common law in relation to the duty of public authorities to provide reasons. It is a well known and oft repeated proposition that there is no general common law duty to furnish the reasons for a decision. It is equally well known that this proposition has been the target of regular attack by those who argue that such a general duty should exist. A reconsideration of both of these propositions is timely in the light of case law developments culminating in the House of Lords' judgment in R. v. Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex p. Doody.

The law describing vendor's and purchaser's liens over personal property can only be described as baffling: there are cases to “prove” and “disprove” almost any proposition. This uncertainty is surprising. A contract of sale is one of the most basic forms of commercial activity, and an equitable lien would convert a vendor or purchaser into a secured creditor by operation of law. The advantages of such a position are self-evident, yet it remains unacceptably difficult to say when such advantages accrue. Fundamental equitable principles seem to support a simple analysis of vendor's and purchaser's liens which might eliminate some of the current uncertainties. This article describes that analysis. It concludes that one party to a sale contract has a lien over identified sale property whenever, and as soon as, all the contractual obligations assumed by that party have been carried out.