Law Commons^™

Chapter 61 provides an overview of automobile insurance law in the United States, including many matters that will be covered in greater detail in subsequent chapters.  The goal in this chapter is to orient the reader to the major components of, and issues concerning, automobile insurance.

John Goldberg and Ben Zipursky’s civil recourse theory purports to be descriptive and unitary. It cannot be both. According to this theory, as a positive matter, tort law is unified by wrongs and is not designed to be used as an instrument for purposes such as compensation and deterrence. In this article, I argue that civil recourse theory does not offer a complete description of twenty first century tort law. Tort law is not just about civil recourse; at least part of tort law’s purpose is instrumental. The extent of routinization in tort law, particularly in automobile accident claims, demonstrates …