Pigeon Hole theory was proposed by

Question

The aim of the rules of natural justice is to secure justice or to put it negatively to prevent miscarriage of justice. These rules can operate only in areas not covered by any law validly made. In other words, they do not supplant the law of the land but supplement it. The concept of natural justice has undergone a great deal of change in recent years. In the past, it was thought that it included just two rules namely: (1) no one shall be a judge in his own case (Nemo debet esse judex propria causa) and (2) no decision shall be given against a party without affording him a reasonable hearing (audi alteram partem).
Very soon thereafter a third rule was envisaged and that is that quasi-judicial enquiries must be held in good faith, without bias and not arbitrarily or unreasonably. But in the course of years many more subsidiary rules came to be added to the rules of natural justice. Till very recently it was the opinion of the courts that unless the authority concerned was required by the law under which it functioned to act judicially there was no room for the application of the rules of natural justice. The validity of that limitation is not questioned.
If the purpose of the rules of natural justice is to prevent miscarriage of justice one fails to see why those rules should be made inapplicable to administrative enquiries. Often times it is not easy to draw the line that demarcates administrative enquiries from quasi-judicial enquiries. Enquiries which were considered administrative at one time are now being considered as quasi-judicial in character. Arriving at a just decision is the aim of both quasi-judicial enquiries as well as administrative enquiries. An unjust decision in an administrative enquiry may have more far reaching effect than a decision in a quasi-judicial enquiry as observed by this Court in Suresh Koshy George v. University of Kerala [Civil Appeal No. 990/68, decided on 15-07- 1968], the rules of natural justice are not embodied rules. What particular rule of natural justice should apply to a given case must depend to a great extent on the facts and circumstances of that case, the framework of the law under which the enquiry is held and the constitution of the Tribunal or body of persons appointed for that purpose. Whenever a complaint is made before a court that some principle of natural justice had been contravened the court has to decide whether the observance of that rule was necessary for a just decision on the facts of that case.
[Extract from the judgment of the Supreme Court in A.K. Kraipak v. Union of India, (1969) 2 SCC 262, decided on April 29, 1969, hereafter ‘A.K. Kraipak’].

Answer 1

This is best approached by remembering the two competing schools of thought on the scope of tort law and matching the description to the right one.

Fix the two camps: Torts scholarship has traditionally been divided between those who say liability is confined to specific, named wrongs (a closed list) and those who say liability flows from one general principle covering any unjustifiable harm.
Match the description: The question describes a fixed set of "pigeon-holes" that a claim must fit into, which is the closed-list view, associated specifically with Salmond, not with Winfield, whose general-principle theory is the opposing position.
Rule out the distractors: Blackstone and "Lord Knight" are not associated with this particular classification debate in tort law at all, so they can be set aside without further analysis.

The correct answer is Salmond.

Answer 2

A helpful memory anchor is the metaphor itself: pigeon-holes are separate, individually labelled compartments, and that image should point directly to the jurist who used it.

Winfield: His view is often remembered through the phrase "law of tort" in the singular, describing one broad wrong (unjustifiable harm) rather than a set of separate compartments, so the pigeon-hole imagery does not belong to him.
Salmond: Salmond's position is remembered through the phrase "law of torts" in the plural, a list of distinct, separately defined wrongs. This is precisely the image of separate compartments that "pigeon-hole" evokes, and it is Salmond's name that textbooks consistently attach to this theory.
Black Stone: Blackstone predates this specific torts classification debate and worked on English law in a much broader historical sense, so the pigeon-hole label is never attributed to him in tort law texts.
Lord Knight: No established torts scholarship attributes any classification theory to a jurist by this name, making this option a non-existent authority for the theory described.

The compartmentalised imagery in the question points squarely to Salmond's closed-list theory.

Hence, the correct answer is Salmond.

Answer 3

A helpful memory anchor is the metaphor itself: pigeon-holes are separate, individually labelled compartments, and that image should point directly to the jurist who used it.

Winfield: His view is often remembered through the phrase "law of tort" in the singular, describing one broad wrong (unjustifiable harm) rather than a set of separate compartments, so the pigeon-hole imagery does not belong to him.
Salmond: Salmond's position is remembered through the phrase "law of torts" in the plural, a list of distinct, separately defined wrongs. This is precisely the image of separate compartments that "pigeon-hole" evokes, and it is Salmond's name that textbooks consistently attach to this theory.
Black Stone: Blackstone predates this specific torts classification debate and worked on English law in a much broader historical sense, so the pigeon-hole label is never attributed to him in tort law texts.
Lord Knight: No established torts scholarship attributes any classification theory to a jurist by this name, making this option a non-existent authority for the theory described.

The compartmentalised imagery in the question points squarely to Salmond's closed-list theory.

Hence, the correct answer is Salmond.

Pigeon Hole theory was proposed by

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