writ of trespass could be issued only where a person had caused bodily injury to another or had interfered with his possession of tangible property forcibly or by breach of the peace viet armis contra pacem domini regis . This remedy reflected a simple society with simple economic relations. But soon, cases began to appear in which there was no direct physical attack or where the harm to the plaintiff was only an indirect result of a particular act or omission on the part of the defendant. From 1350, the Chancellor allowed an action of trespass sur le case or action on the case which not only developed in time into the different sets of fact which now afford a remedy in the Law of Tort, but also became the basis of the subsequent Law of Contract. In a famous case in 1348 the claim was that the defendant ferryman had overloaded his ship and caused it to founder, thereby causing the loss of the plaintiff’s horse which had been entrusted to him for carriage. Today, this scenario could easily fall under the Law of Contract. At that time there was no general claim for damages based on breach of contract. The claim could not be based on Trespass, for the loss of the horse was not directly attributable to any act of the ferryman. In this case the Chancellor allowed an “action on the case”, basing himself on the fact that the ferryman in performing a public service undertook (assumpsit) the duty to bring his customers’ property unharmed to the other bank. Thus gradually assumpsit became a special variant of the “action on the case”, available at first only where a person had misperformed in
