History For a variety of complex historical reasons beyond the scope of this article, personal injury lawsuits in tort for monetary damages were virtually nonexistent before the Second Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. The copy available through the direct link from the article title is the preprint version. The final version with as-published pagination, linked from the digital object identifier, requires a subscription to the De Gruyter database. As a subset of personal injury cases, product liability cases were extraordinarily rare, but it appears that in the few that were brought, the general rule at early common law was probably what modern observers would call no-fault or strict liability. In other words, the plaintiff only needed to prove causation and damages.
History For a variety of complex historical reasons beyond the scope of this article, personal injury lawsuits in tort for monetary damages were virtually nonexistent before the Second Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. The copy available through the direct link from the article title is the preprint version. The final version with as-published pagination, linked from the digital object identifier, requires a subscription to the De Gruyter database. As a subset of personal injury cases, product liability cases were extraordinarily rare, but it appears that in the few that were brought, the general rule at early common law was probably what modern observers would call no-fault or strict liability. In other words, the plaintiff only needed to prove causation and damages.