It is not accurate to say most of what is said in the first paragraph The general rule of accidental injury is that the costs of an accident lie where they fall See Holmes The Common Law pp 63 103 in the 1963 Howe ed Tort law only redistributes the costs of accidents when one person can prove that another person s conduct reaches the standard that the relevant government actor has set for tort liability Cf I d However I don t think the example was in the introduction to be taken literally I think the purpose of the example was to say here s the basic idea of tort law when does the law step in to say that a person does not have to pay for his own injury and how But it could and should have been much better written to do as I am trying to do now