Dr Marco Cappelletti

Marco is Lecturer in Law at St John’s College. Prior to his current position, Marco was Junior Research Fellow at St John's.

Marco completed a DPhil. in Oxford. He also holds an MJur. from the University of Oxford, an LLM. from the Harvard Law School, where he was a Fulbright Scholar and received the Dean’s Scholar Prize for academic excellence, and a five-year law degree from the University of Perugia.

Teaching

Currently, Marco teaches Tort, Contract, and Land Law. He has also taught Roman law.

Marco's research interests lie in private law (especially Tort and Contract) and in comparative law.

Marco is the author of an article offering a pluralist account of vicarious liability in tort law, recently published in the Law Quarterly Review: A Pluralist View of Vicarious Liability in Tort (2024) 140 LQR 61.

He is the author of the monograph Justifying Strict Liability: A Comparative Analysis in Legal Reasoning (OUP 2022), which explores the most significant justifications that are put forward to justify strict liability in four legal systems, two common law, England and the United States, and two civil law, France and Italy. This work has been awarded the Grand Prize of the International Academy of Comparative Law. The announcement was made during the General Assembly of the Academy held on 28 October 2022 in Asunción, Paraguay.

Marco’s work on the role of punishment in tort law, entitled ‘Comparative Reflections on Punishment in Tort Law’ and published in Jean-Sébastien Borghetti and Simon Whittaker (eds), French Civil Liability in Comparative Perspective (Hart Publishing 2019), has been awarded the Ius Commune Prize for outstanding legal research. This work was also translated into French and published as ‘Réflexions comparatives sur le rôle de la punition en droit de la responsabilité délictuelle’ in the French Revue des contrats, issue 4, in December 2019.

He is the co-author of a book chapter on the relationship between private law (property, tort, and contract) and building safety, forthcoming in a collection of essays edited by Matthew Bell, Susan Bright, Ben McFarlane, and Andrew Robertson.

He is currently working on the justifications for vicarious liability, on the concept of foreseeability in private law (both in English law and from a comparative perspective), and on the different standards of liability in the context of accidental harm.

Recent Publications

M. Cappelletti, ‘Justifying Harm-Based Strict Liability: Reflections on Keating’s Reasonableness and Risk’ (forthcoming in Law and Philosophy)

M. Cappelletti, ‘A Pluralist View of Vicarious Liability in Tort’ (2024) 140 Law Quarterly Review 61

M. Cappelletti, Justifying Strict Liability: A Comparative Analysis in Legal Reasoning (OUP 2022) (awarded the Grand Prize of the International Academy of Comparative Law)

M. Cappelletti, ‘Compensatio lucri cum damno e Torts: prospettive inglesi alla luce delle quattro sentenze gemelle della Corte di Cassazione’ in Angelo Venchiarutti (ed), La compensatio lucri cum damno. Orientamenti italiani e europei a confronto (Pacini Giuridica 2020) 69

M. Cappelletti, ‘Compensatio Lucri cum Damno in Tort Law: An English Perspective on the Italian Four Judgments’ (2020) 28 European Review of Private Law 701

M. Cappelletti, ‘Réflexions comparatives sur le rôle de la punition en droit de la responsabilité délictuelle’ (2019) 116 Revue des contrats 293

M. Cappelletti, ‘Comparative Reflections on Punishment in Tort Law’ in J-S Borghetti and S Whittaker (eds), French Civil Liability in Comparative Perspective (Hart Publishing 2019) 329 (awarded the Ius Commune Prize for outstanding legal research)

M. Cappelletti, ‘Sui limiti alla risarcibilità iure hereditatis del danno biologico e morale in caso di morte del prossimo congiunto’ (2016) 2 Danno e Responsabilità 194

M. Cappelletti, ‘Punitive Damages and the Public/Private Distinction: A Comparison between the United States and Italy’ (2015) 32 Arizona Journal of International & Comparative Law 799

M. Cappelletti, ‘Rapporto tra Sentenze Penali e Giudizio Civile Risarcitorio’ (2015) 6 Danno e Responsabilità 587

M. Cappelletti, ‘La tutela dell’affidamento e il dovere di coerenza nel diritto comparato’ (2011) 2 Rivista Critica del Diritto Privato 313

M. Cappelletti, ‘Justifying Strict Liability: A Comparative Perspective’, British Association of Comparative Law, 31 March 2023, https://british-association-comparative-law.org/2023/03/31/justifying-strict-liability-a-comparative-perspective-by-marco-cappelletti/

Awards and Distinctions

Grand Prize of the International Academy of Comparative Law, awarded in 2022 for the monograph entitled Justifying Strict Liability: A Comparative Analysis in Legal Reasoning (The prize is awarded every four years to the best comparative law monograph; competition is open to any individual holding a law degree.)

Ius Commune Prize, awarded in 2021 for the chapter entitled ‘Comparative Reflections on Punishment in Tort Law’ and published in Jean-Sébastien Borghetti and Simon Whittaker (eds), French Civil Liability in Comparative Perspective (Hart Publishing 2019) 329 (The prize is awarded annually for work of outstanding quality which falls within the field of the Ius Commune Research School.)

Roy Goode Scholarship, Oxford Law Faculty, 2018–19 (academic merit based)

Graduate Assistance Fund Award, Oxford Law Faculty, 2018–19, 2016–17 (academic merit based)

Fulbright Scholarship, Harvard Law School, 2013–14 (academic merit based)

Michael Vinciguerra Fund Scholarship, Harvard Law School, 2013–14 (academic merit based)

Dean’s Scholar Prize, Harvard Law School, 2013–14, in the course ‘The Politics of Private Law in Historical and Comparative Perspective’ (academic merit based; ‘awarded for extraordinary work to the top students in classes with law student enrollment of seven or more’)

Summer Academic Fellowship, Harvard Law School, 2014 (academic merit based)