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This chapter focuses on the influence of David Daube and Otto Lenel on Alan Rodger. Daube held the Regius Chair of Civil Law at Oxford from 1955 to 1970 and supervised Alan's doctorate from 1967 onwards. As with all his pupils, he had ‘an indelible influence’ on Alan who remained a lifelong admirer. Daube himself had inherited the technique of close linguistic analysis and textual criticism from another master, Otto Lenel. For Alan, Lenel was simply ‘the greatest scholar of Roman law in modern times’, and his ‘brilliant Palingenesia’ had ‘transformed the study of Roman law so as to render obsolete practically everything written up until that time’.

This chapter presents a tribute given at Lord Rodger's memorial service held in St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh on 25 November 2011. Andrew Burrows, Professor of the Law of England in the University of Oxford, talks about Alan's extraordinary career and the qualities that made him the scholar, the lawyer, and person that he was. He also details Alan's close relationship with Oxford.

This chapter focuses on Alan Rodger's contributions to the development of Scots criminal law. It begins by describing his early career at the Scots Bar. It then details his time in the Crown Office; his appointment as a judge; and his views on the law on corroboration, the crime of murder, human rights, and diminished responsibility. It also considers some of the cases where Lord Rodger played a major role in developing the criminal law to take account of the new Human Rights landscape.

This chapter presents a tribute given at Lord Rodger's memorial service held in St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh on 25 November 2011. David Edward, former judge of the European Court of Justice and Professor Emeritus, University of Edinburgh, talks about Alan's unswerving sense of public and private morality, and old-fashioned Scots commitment to hard work. He also describes Alan's career, judgments, and writings.

This chapter presents a tribute given at Lord Rodger's memorial service held in St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh on 25 November 2011. Journalist and broadcaster Colin MacKay recalls the start of his lifelong friendship with Lord Rodger. He also describes Alan as very modest and moral person with a legendary work ethic and a mischievous sense of humour.

This chapter assesses Alan Rodger's contribution to the Scots law of unjustified enrichment. It focuses on Dollar Land (Cumbernauld) v CIN Properties Ltd. The case was appealed twice to the House of Lords but has not been widely commented upon probably because, as decided, it does not concern unjustified enrichment but rather affirms the well-known rule that an enrichment claim is excluded by the express terms of a contract. The case is significant because when the appeal was before the Court of Session for the second time (1996) Lord Rodger of Earlsferry gave a dissenting opinion. He remained in a minority of one in favour of allowing a claim of unjustified enrichment; the majority, at all stages in the appeal, was not.

This chapter reflects on the form and language of Alan Rodger's judgments. His judgments are well written pieces of English prose. Their language is vigorous and arresting. They are persuasive, skilfully deploying humour and rhetoric to make a point. They are lucid and scholarly. They also reflect the personality of the man who wrote them: his interests, his sense of humour, his energy, and sheer effervescence.

This chapter focuses on the crowning work of Alan Rodger's series of studies in modern legal history. In his 2008 study of the Disruption of 1843, Rodger expertly charted the theological, legal, and constitutional conflicts that led to one-third of the ministry of the Church of Scotland seceding to form the Free Church. He then examined the ensuing battles over the identity and governance of the dissenting church and the due succession of ecclesiastical property — quarrels that would surface over and over again in the courts down to present times. The chapter describes the Scottish church conflicts in proprietary terms and sets the story against a wider backdrop of church law in England. Neither the Scottish nor the English story can be studied in isolation.

Alan Rodger has a special fascination for Lenel's work and, more generally, the compilation of the Digest and identification of the original context of the now fragmentary texts of the Roman jurists. The starting point for that endeavour was Lenel's two great works: the Palingenesia iuris civilis of 1889 and Das Edictum Perpetuum, the third edition of which appeared in 1927. This chapter looks briefly at two areas in which Alan was particularly interested and in which he did much to develop Lenel's work. The aim of the exercise is to provide two footnotes to Rodger. Specifically, the chapter comments on Rodger's short study entitled ‘The palingenesia of Paul's commentary on the actio aquae pluviae arcendae’ (1988) and another study ‘Vadimonium to Rome (and elsewhere)’.

This chapter reflects on Alan Rodger's interest and expertise in statute law. It presents examples that illustrate the range of his interest in statute law, from the purest scholarship to a lively appreciation, derived from his experience as a Scottish Law Officer, of the art of the possible. They also give a hint of the quality of his prose style, and the breadth of his reading and knowledge of both high and popular culture. Some of his important judgments on statutes are reviewed.

This chapter focuses on Alan Rodger's work on Roman law. It examines Paul Digest fragment D. 30.126 pr, including its legal background, and the first and second case discussed in the fragment. It also considers the new German translation of Paul Digest 30.126 pr.

This chapter presents a tribute given at Lord Rodger's memorial service held in St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh on 25 November 2011. Luigi Labruna, Emeritus Professor of Roman Law, University of Naples Federico II, talks about Alan's contributions to Roman legal scholarship. These include the book, Owners and Neighbours in Roman Law and his role as a member of the jury in the ‘Premio romanistico internazionale Gérard Boulvert’ — a prize is awarded every three years to historians of Roman and ancient law from all over the world.

This chapter seeks to honour Alan Rodger's memory by taking his own personal theological heritage seriously and looking at how this might help us to understand the business of judging. It argues that the insider-outsider perspective that was part of Rodger's cultural heritage gave depth to his intellectual inquiries. It informed his judicial role with the virtues of humility and humanity.

This chapter reflects on the question of dissenting judgments. In what circumstances are they called for, in what circumstances not? What sort of considerations should animate those contemplating a dissent? In what sort of terms should they be expressed? The reflections concern principally dissenting judgments in the Supreme Court as a final appellate tribunal. It concludes that Lord Rodger's dissenting judgments were never the occasion of the least hostility between members of the court but also challenged the rest of the court to think more deeply about the issues involved. And invariably they were expressed in language of such matchless charm and felicity as utterly to disarm any who might disagree.

This chapter reflects on Lord Rodger's judgments, which show that his approach to the common law was not that of a revolutionary. His great strength was his intellectual honesty, tenacious respect for precedent, logical analysis, and clarity of expression laced with a devastating turn of phrase. It reviews a number of Lord Rodger's common law judgments, including the mesothelioma cases of Fairchild v Glenhaven Funeral Services and Barker v Corus (UK) Plc; D v East Berkshire Community NHS Trust; Gray v Thames Trains Ltd; and Watkins v Secretary of State for the Home Department.

In 1990, Alan Rodger published an article on the lex Irnitana, a first-century municipal charter from Spain. The article addressed a difficult topic: chapter 84 on jurisdiction. This chapter analyzes the text of chapter 84, the composition of the lex Irnitana, and the composition of chapter 84.

This chapter analyzes the texts from Book 18 of Ulpian's commentary on the edict. It discusses the lost inheritance (Digest 9.2.23.1–2); the position of a slave, freed and instituted heir by testament; Ulpian's criterion; the Byzantine interpretation; Ulpian's difference with Julian; the fraudulent slave (Digest 9.2.23.4); and the shift from physical damage to loss of a skill or knowledge.

Lord Rodger promoted the institution of the judicial assistants in the Supreme Court and encouraged new lawyers to apply for the job after completing their professional legal training. Lord Rodger felt that the young lawyers who spent a year as judicial assistants with the Supreme Court were an invaluable addition to the court. He also took delight in seeing the progress his charges made over the course of the year in the Supreme Court and beyond. This chapter describes the daily duties of the judicial assistants in the Supreme Court; and, thereby attempts to continue Lord Rodger's work in encouraging new generations of lawyers to consider working for the highest court in the UK.

This chapter examines the well-known, even notorious case of Royal Bank of Scotland v Wilson, where Lord Rodger gave the leading opinion. The decision caused consternation among the holders of standard securities seeking to enter into possession and exercise their right of sale. The chapter also discusses the origin and scope of the maxim communis error facit ius; and the RBS v Wilson case.

This chapter explores the attitudes of the Law Lords/Justices of the Supreme Court, and in particular that of Lord Rodger, to the jurisprudence of the Strasbourg Court. It discusses the Human Rights Act 1998, focusing on Section 2 and its potential effect on the interpretation of statutes.