Understanding Aspects of the Law A Guide to Criminal, Tort, and Regulatory Law

Why can an individual who was found not guilty in criminal court be made to pay damages in a tort case? What is administrative or regulatory law? And how and why are different facets of the legal system so complex, nuanced, and different from each other?

Understanding Aspects of the Law: A Guide to Criminal, Tort, and Regulatory Law helps students better understand how the areas of criminal law, tort or personal injury law, and regulatory or administrative law function, as well as the strengths and shortcomings of each.

The opening chapter examines features of criminal law, elements of a criminal offense, breach of legal duty, the voluntary act requirement, the guilty mind, and strict liability. Additional chapters address criminal homicide, the insanity defense, the elements of a tort offense, the requirements for causation and proximate causation, product liability, and ultrahazardous activities. Students learn about the differences between criminal law and torts, environmental health laws, rights protection under administrative laws, sanctions, political pressures, and more. Throughout the book, excerpts from court cases help students better understand specific areas of the law.

Understanding Aspects of the Law is an illuminating and essential resource for courses and programs in law, as well as legal and moral philosophy.

Carl F. Cranor is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. He holds a Ph.D. from UCLA and an M.S.L. from Yale Law School. Dr. Cranor's primary area of research is legal and moral philosophy. He is the author of Tragic Failures: How and Why We Are Harmed by Toxic Chemicals; Toxic Torts: Science, Law and the Possibility of Justice (2nd ed.); and Legally Poisoned: How the Law Puts Us at Risk from Toxicants, among other books and articles.