James Goudkamp offers a practical perspective on the tort of malicious prosecution of civil proceedings
- The case of Willers v Joyce gave rise to a new tort, that of malicious prosecution of civil proceedings.
The law of torts periodically spawns a new cause of action. For example, Wilkinson v Downton [1897] 2 QB 57 established the tort of wilful infringement of personal safety. The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 created the tort of harassment.
Sometimes, tort law grows by absorbing a cause of action that was previously understood to pertain to another branch of the law. Thus, the action in breach of confidence, which was for centuries understood exclusively as a species of equitable wrongdoing, has been acknowledged, at least in cases that involve a breach of privacy as opposed to the divulgement of secret information, as a ‘tort’ (see, eg, Douglas v Hello! Ltd [2007] UKHL 21; [2008] 1 AC 1 [255] (Lord Nicholls)). The newest addition to the stable is the tort of malicious prosecution of civil proceedings. The Supreme Court recognised that action in its landmark decision in Willers
