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Staff Profile

Dr Christine Beuermann

Senior Lecturer in Law

Background

Biography

Christine joined Newcastle Law School from the University of Tasmania.  She researches and publishes in the area of strict liability in the law of torts and private law more generally.  Christine has made a significant contribution to the understanding of strict liability for the torts of another.  This research was cited by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in Woodland v Essex County Council and the High Court of Australia in the hearing for Prince Alfred College v ADC and culminated in a book titled Reconceptualising Strict Liability for the Tort of Another, published by Hart in 2019. More recently, Christine has been exploring the different senses in which the term 'strict liability' is used in the law of torts in order to clarify its usage and normative underpinnings and developing a broader theory of tort law.

Christine was a Herbert Smith Freehills Visitor to the Faculty of Law in the University of Cambridge in 2018.  In 2020 Christine was appointed an Honorary Academic in T.C. Beirne School of Law, Faculty of Business, Economics and Law.

Qualifications

Newcastle Teaching Award 

PhD, Australian National University (awarded without corrections) - Strict Liability for the Wrongdoing of Another in Tort

BCL, Oxford (1st) 

LLB, Griffith University (1st) 

B.Com, Griffith University

Roles and Responsibilities

PGR Degree Programme Director

Convenor Law and Obligations Research Group Newcastle Law School

Mooting Coordinator

North East Region Obligations Group (NEROG) seminar coordinator


Research

Areas of Interest

  • strict liability for the torts of another (vicarious liability and conferred authority strict liability)
  • strict liability more generally
  • intentional torts to the person
  • nuisance
  • torts more generally
  • map of tort law - interest balancing
  • legal theory
  • remedial responses

PhD supervision

Christine is particularly looking to supervise projects which seek to assist judges further clarify problematic areas in private law by unpacking the process of judicial decision making in those areas.  Potential areas to examine include, but are not limited to, the future of the trespass torts, the role of vicarious liability in filling evidential gaps, the nature of relationships which attract enhanced liability, the extent to which private law sets standards of behaviour and the significance of the need for judges to balance competing interests when resolving disputes in private law.

Current supervisions

1.  Tashbir Hasan, 'Resolution of outer-space disputes: Addressing the status quo and the need for modernisation'

2.  Mengyu Cui, 'Remedies in Environmental Law'

Publications

See separate tab

Conferences/Presentations                                                                                                                                

1. 'The liability of the state for omissions in tort: balancing competing interests - Obligations X Banff (11-14 July 2023)

2. 'Was Donoghue v Stevenson the House of Lords' finest hour?' - Donoghue v Stevenson The Immortal Snail 90 years on - Law Society of Scotland, Edinburgh, online 26 May 2022

3. 'Tort Law Beyond the Forms of Action', Leicester Law School (29 September 2021)

4. 'Vicarious Liability in Australia' - Vicarious Liability in the Common Law World, Bristol University, online 15 April 2021

5. 'The abstraction of form and the associated dangers for the English courts:  The case study of vicarious liability' - Obligations IX Melbourne (17-20 July 2018)

6.  Convened NEROG seminar titled ‘The Not So Beautiful Game:  The Liability of Football Clubs for Sexual Abuse’ (8 May 2017) Newcastle University – speakers include Professor Greg Keating (University of Southern California), Professor Paula Giliker (University of Bristol) and Phillip Morgan (York University) - presented paper titled 'The relationship triggering strict liability'

7.  ‘Do hospitals owe a non-delegable duty of care?’, Liability –v- Innovation (an ESRC Seminar series) Seminar 5: Strict liability and offsetting risks (4 May 2017) Keele University

8.  ‘Until someone gets hurt:  the first regenerative medicine law suits from the US and Japan’, Liability –v- Innovation (an ESRC Seminar series) Seminar 2:  Does liability stifle innovation? Economic models and anecdotal findings (18 April 2016) Keele University

9.  ‘The case for abolishing trespass to the person’ (Paper presented at Obligations VII  Common law of obligations: divergence and convergence , Hong Kong, July 2014)

10.  ‘Conferred authority strict liability and institutional child sexual abuse’ (Paper presented at Torts Forum: Apportionment and Attribution of Liability, University of Sydney, December 2013)

11.  ‘In Defence of the Non-Delegable Duty of Care’ (Paper presented at Obligations V  Rights and Private Law, Oxford, July 2010)

12.  ‘Liability in Tort for Employment’ (Paper presented at Obligations IV The Goals of Private Law, Singapore, July 2008

Teaching

Undergraduate Teaching

LAW2163 Equity (seminarist)

LAW3025 Private International Law (not currently running))

LAW3098 Dissertation (Module Coordinator)

LAW3252 Problem Areas in Private Law (Module Coordinator)

LAW3253 Private Law Remedies (Module Coordinator)


Teaching Funding

£1500 - HASS Teaching Development Fund - Pilot PASS in LAW2163 Equity

£1500 - Newcastle Law School Research Assistant Scheme - Equality and Diversity Project to review problem based exam and coursework assessments set in the Law School for the 2015/16 academic year to determine whether parties used in those assessment reflect social diversity (to be repeated in 2016/17)


Publications