Essential Cases: Tort Law (6th edn) by Craig Purshouse

Essential Cases: Tort Law (6th edn) by Craig Purshouse is a good collection of some of the most important, up-to-date, and binding cases in the Law of Tort. It covers a range of topics in clear language, including, but not limited to, negligence, defamation, trespass, and defences. This is both a good guide for learning the content and for revision purposes for any student reading for a qualifying law degree in England and Wales.

I liked this book because all the cases are explained in clear language, and it is very student-friendly. Each case's facts are explained, followed by the decisions, and then the author, in this case, Purshouse, gives a commentary and wider questions. Unlike official law reports, these summaries are much shorter and still include the most essential details. They really help save the first-year law student both time and confusion because official law reports can occasionally be very long and cause much confusion.

There are a few things which I didn't like about this book. Firstly, although this book is meant to contain all the essential cases for the Law of Tort, there are many really important cases which have been committed. However, this may be to stop students from relying on this book, ensuring that they do also read some law reports as this is an important skill. If this is the reason for not including all the cases, then it is completely understandable. As well as this, some of the cases are explained in more depth than others, and for some of the cases, this is not very good as some of them deserve the same amount of detail but are not given this amount of detail.

Altogether, I rate this book 3 stars, making it a good book because it explains a number of essential cases in the Law of Tort with clarity and commentaries, which help students learn the importance of these cases and question some of the reasoning behind some of these cases. It is a good tool both for when learning the material and revising the material, so I would definitely recommend it for students reading law at university, although A-level law students may find some value in this book to expand and deepen their knowledge of key cases in this area of the law.