Detention of Private Persons by Private Persons as a Delictual Wrong: Liability for Deprivation of Liberty in Scots Private Law

Abstract

Jonathan Brown is a lecturer in Scots Private Law at the University of Strathclyde
in Glasgow. Previously he was a lecturer in law at Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon
University. Jonathan considers himself to be a private law generalist and dabbling
legal historian. His recent publications include work on medical jurisprudence, the
law of defamation and the relation between the Roman law of slavery and modern
Scottish human trafficking legislation. The present essay is intended to provide a
modern account which places acts amounting to wrongful detention effected by
private persons within the taxonomy of iniuria.