Vale Professor Harold Luntz AO
25 February 1937 – 29 January 2025
[I wrote this obituary for publication in a forthcoming edition of the Australian Law Journal, but I thought I would share it with you here, so that it can get to a non-legal audience, because Harold was such a good man.]
For many lawyers in Australia and beyond, Harold Luntz was a giant in the field of tort law. His name is synonymous with two things: first, his enormous contribution to the scholarship and teaching of tort law generally; and secondly, his championship for a no-fault compensation scheme to ensure that injured people were more readily compensated, regardless of fault. He was also erudite, gentle, and very generous in his support of younger scholars and students.
Professor Luntz born in Johannesburg in 1937. He was descended from Lithuanian Jews who had been forced to flee Europe by growing antisemitism. His extended family in Lithuania later mostly perished in the Holocaust, vindicating his ancestors’ decision to flee.
An only child, he was educated at Athlone Boys’ School in Johannesburg, and went on to complete both arts and law degrees with distinction at the University of Witwatersrand. After a short stint in practice, he was admitted to the Bachelor of Civil Laws at Oxford, at Lincoln College, in 1960. He had always been opposed to the racial segregation of Apartheid South Africa, but his time in England brought home to him how deleterious it was. He returned to South Africa and lectured at the University of Witwatersrand for three years, but regretfully decided that the Apartheid system could not be changed, and emigrated to Australia.
Fortunately for generations of Australian lawyers and law students, Professor Luntz was employed by Melbourne Law School at the University of Melbourne in 1965, as a Senior Lecturer, and remained there for the rest of his career. He was appointed a Reader in 1971, and a Professor in 1976, where he held the George Paton Chair of Law until 2002. He also served as the Dean of the Law School between 1986 and 1988, during which time he helped to bring the faculty together. He “retired” in 2008, and became an Emeritus Professor, but this retirement was in name only: he continued to write, research and assist other scholars and students until his death.
Professor Luntz had visiting professorial positions at the University of California, Berkeley, Queen’s University in Ontario, and Wolfson College, University of Oxford. Outside academia, reflecting his interest in no-fault compensation schemes and law reform, he held a variety of roles, including being the Deputy Chair of the Seafarers Rehabilitation and Compensation Authority (1993–1998), a Senior Member of the Workcare Appeals Board (1990–1992), and the Secretary of the Victorian Chief Justice’s Law Reform committee (1967–1984).
Professor Luntz was one of the founding editors of the Torts Law Journal, and acted as its General Editor from 1993 to 2012. He remained on the editorial board until his death. His scholarship was prodigious and unparalleled, as was his recall and his eye for detail. He received many awards for his contributions towards legal scholarship, including the John G Fleming Award for Torts Scholarship in 2000 and the Australian Insurance Law Association Prize in 2003. In 2019, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) “for distinguished service to legal education, as an academic and editor, to the professional development, and to the community.” No award was ever more deserved.
Reflecting Professor Luntz’s generosity, and his dedication to scholarship, the Harold Luntz Graduate Research Thesis Prize is now awarded each year by Melbourne Law School to the best thesis of the previous year.
Few people have written as much or as extensively as Professor Luntz, and his works were always treated with respect by the apex courts in many common law jurisdictions, even in times when academic works were not generally cited. In 1980, he, Robert Hayes and David Hambly came together to write the first edition of what later became known as ‘Luntz and Hambly on Tort’, a textbook which shaped the studies of tort law in Australia. He also wrote Assessment of Damages for Personal Injury and Death (more colloquially known to most as ‘Luntz on Damages’). Fittingly, Professor Luntz was awarded an LLD for the second edition of this book in 1983. He remained an author of Luntz and Hambly on Tort, published in its ninth edition in 2021 (now joined by Kylie Burns, Joachim Dietrich, Neil Foster, Genevieve Grant and Sirko Harder as co-authors). Also in 2021, Professor Luntz was proud to publish the fifth edition of Assessment of Damages for Personal Injury and Death, with Sirko Harder as a co-author, and with the invaluable proofreading assistance and help from Marina Loane.
Professor Luntz reflected with characteristic gentle irony that he was an expert in areas with which he fundamentally disagreed and thought should be abolished: negligence law and the calculation of damages. His concern was always to ensure that injured people were compensated fairly, regardless of whose fault it was.
In his eulogy for Professor Luntz, Professor Ian Malkin recounted that he had been hired by Professor Luntz, via a phone call to Winnipeg, and that Professor Luntz picked him up at the airport when he arrived in Australia. Professor Luntz infected Professor Malkin with his passion for torts and teaching.
Professor Malkin also observed that it was as if Professor Luntz had a computer chip in his brain. Professor Luntz’s recall for all manner of things—but particularly tort law—was extraordinary. His knowledge could readily be described as catalogic. The Honourable Michael Kirby, upon Professor Luntz’s retirement, recounted an event where Professor Luntz was pitted against a machine, in a contest of knowledge about the law concerning “nervous shock”. To the surprise of no one, Professor Luntz trounced the computer. Kirby stated:
Perhaps we should be grateful that we still live in an age where the human brain, with its rare capacities to conceptualise, select and analyse, can beat machines. So far no-one has been able to program a machine as good as the brain — and certainly not as good as Harold Luntz’s brain. No-one has yet attempted to program a machine with a will to do justice.1
This was Professor Luntz’s guiding passion: a will to do justice. He was what is called in Yiddish a mensch: a thoroughly good man who embodied integrity, honour and a sense of responsibility towards others. His son Stephen described Professor Luntz in his eulogy as a person who, if he had been a character in Dungeons and Dragons, would have been the embodiment of Lawful Good. This is true. I remain very honoured that Professor Luntz was my friend. I wish I were more like he was, but I strongly suspect myself of being Chaotic rather than Lawful.
Professor Luntz suffered from severe Parkinson’s disease, scoliosis and other problems towards the end of his life. I was undertaking a rehabilitation program at hospital for my own disability, and my neurophysiotherapist said, in a conversational way, “Is there something which makes law professors who specialise in damages especially friendly, interesting people?” I said, “Oh you’ve met Harold!” She declined to confirm it, on the basis of patient confidentiality, but a quick text to Professor Luntz confirmed that I was right. He never complained about his illness, and the fact that he lived such a rich intellectual inner life sustained him even while his mobility and other aspects of his life were constrained.
In what was to be our final correspondence, I sent Professor Luntz and Emeritus Professor Bryan a draft paper I had written on bailment, as was my wont. Professor Luntz replied a few days later to say that he enjoyed it, but noted (correctly) that there were four typographical errors, and that the paper could be improved by a reference to the recent High Court case of Arsalan v Rixon.2 As in so much else, I immediately took his advice. I am sad that this was our last correspondence, but I am glad that it was so quintessentially Harold.
Professor Luntz was a dedicated family man and a devoted husband to Jennifer. He was buried beside her at MCK Lyndhurst Cemetery on 31 January 2025. He is survived by his son Stephen, his daughter Heather and their families. He will be missed but his contributions to legal scholarship, law reform, teaching and society will live on, and his memory truly will be a blessing.
Hon M Kirby, ‘Foreword: Harold Luntz, Doyen of the Australian Law of Torts’ (2003) 27(3) Melbourne University Law Review 635, 640.
[2021] HCA 40, (2021) 274 CLR 606.
He was also my torts lecturer. He gave me a fantastic introduction to the law in general, and made me appreciate torts and no fault compensation much more than I ever suspected I would!
I was very sorry to read of his passing but this was lovely piece and I was glad to read it.
This is a lovely obit - thank you Katy. I was a v junior temporary lecturer at Melbourne Uni Law School 1986-87, while Harold was Dean. He was unfailingly helpful and supportive. The Law School's politics were not straightforward (there were factions, and personality conflicts) - Harold navigated them with skill and care. And yes, the only way we can repay is to pay forward.