caa a22 4500 386381712 CHVBK 20180307112044.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130e198907 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1017/S0008197300105306 doi S0008197300105306 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.1017/S0008197300105306 Kincaid Peter Third Parties: Rationalising a Right to Sue [Elektronische Daten] [Peter Kincaid] In a revolutionary but unsatisfactory recent decision, the High Court of Australia has allowed a third-party beneficiary of an insurance contract a right to sue the promisor. The decision casts doubt upon the whole doctrine of privity and ultimately upon bargain as the theoretical basis of promissory liability. The Trident case is unsatisfactory not because it allowed a third-party beneficiary a cause of action or because it challenges privity and bargain, but because it offers no satisfactory replacement for the theory of bargain. The reasons the court gave for recognising a right to sue are weak and inconsistent with the common law's approach to questions of civil liability. That approach is to give a plaintiff a cause of action against a defendant not solely because of something the defendant has done, but because there is a legally relevant link between what he has done and the plaintiff's condition. That is, the plaintiff must, in order to establish a right, satisfy some criterion for linking the defendant's behaviour to his complaint. Copyright © Cambridge Law Journal and Contributors 1989 The Cambridge Law Journal Cambridge University Press 48/2(1989-07), 243-270 0008-1973 48:2<243 1989 48 CLJ https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008197300105306 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008197300105306 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Kincaid Peter NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- The Cambridge Law Journal Cambridge University Press 48/2(1989-07), 243-270 0008-1973 48:2<243 1989 48 CLJ CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge