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The floodgates principle, or the floodgates argument, is a legal principle which is sometimes applied by judges to restrict or limit the right to make claims for damages because of a concern that permitting a claimant to recover in such situations might open the metaphorical "floodgates" to large numbers of claims and lawsuits. The principle is most frequently cited in common law jurisdictions, and in English tort law in particular. Most of the situations in which the courts have employed the floodgates argument have revolved around liability in tort, and in particular in relation to the liability for nervous shock or for pure economic loss. The rationale in which the floodgates principle has been applied may vary. It some cases it is expressed to be a constraint upon when a defendant will owe a duty of care, in others it is expressed to be a limitation upon the remoteness of damage for which a defendant should be held responsible for.〔In ''Spartan Steel & Alloys Ltd v Martin & Co (Contractors) Ltd'' () 1 QB 27 Lord Denning MR recognised this explicitly: "At bottom I think the question of recovering economic loss is one of policy. Whenever the courts draw a line to mark out the bounds of duty, they do it as matter of policy so as to limit the responsibility of the defendant. Whenever the courts set bounds to the damages recoverable - saying that they are, or are not, too remote - they do it as matter of policy so as to limit the liability of the defendant. In many of the cases where economic loss has been held not to be recoverable, it has been put on the ground that the defendant was under no duty to the plaintiff. ... In other cases, however, the defendant seems clearly to have been under a duty to the plaintiff, but the economic loss has not been recovered because it is too remote."〕 The floodgates principle is arguably the antithesis of the legal maxim: ''fiat justitia ruat caelum'' ("let justice be done though the heavens fall"). ==Rationale== The core of the principle was enunciated by the then-Chief Justice of the New York Court of Appeals (later Associate Supreme Court Justice) Benjamin N. Cardozo in ''Ultramares Corp. v. Touche'' (1932) 174 N.E. 441 as the risk of exposing defendants to liability for "indeterminate amount for an indeterminate time to an indeterminate class". In ''Spartan Steel & Alloys Ltd v Martin & Co (Contractors) Ltd''〔() 1 QB 27〕 Lord Denning MR put the same point in more expansive terms: If a party by their negligence causes physical injury to one other person, then the pool of claimants for that physical injury is just that person. However, if each person who suffers resultant economic loss as a result of the injury to the person is also able to make a claim, then potentially the negligent party (and the courts) could be opened up to a vast array of claims. Similarly, where a party publishes a negligent in a document, if that document is published widely, if every person who read that statement was entitled to rely upon it and claim for any loss caused by relying upon it, there would similarly be an extremely wide ranging liability for negligent misstatement. The last, and probably most difficult area where the floodates principle has been evoked relates to psychiatric injury, or "nervous shock". How far should a person be liable if they injure someone negligently, and then other persons see the accident and suffer psychiatric injury (but no physical harm) just from witnessing the accident? In trying to answer these questions the courts have sometimes fallen back on the floodgates principle to try and limit the potential range of claims. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Floodgates principle」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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