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Lapses Of Attention In Medical Malpractice And Road Accidents, Robert D. Cooter, Ariel Porat
Lapses Of Attention In Medical Malpractice And Road Accidents, Robert D. Cooter, Ariel Porat
Robert Cooter
A doctor who lapses and injures her patient, and a driver who lapses and causes an accident, are liable under negligence law for the harm done. But lapse is not necessarily negligence, since reasonable people lapse from time to time. We show that tort liability for “reasonable” lapses distorts doctors’, drivers’, and manufacturers’ incentives to take care. Furthermore, such liability provides potential injurers with incentives to substitute activities which are less prone to lapses with activities which are more prone to lapses, even if such substitution is inefficient. We propose several solutions to the inefficiencies that result from liability for …
Does Risk To Oneself Increase The Care Owed To Others? Law And Economics In Conflict, Robert D. Cooter, Ariel Porat
Does Risk To Oneself Increase The Care Owed To Others? Law And Economics In Conflict, Robert D. Cooter, Ariel Porat
Robert Cooter
As applied by courts, the Hand Rule balances the injurer's burden of precaution and the victims' reduction in risk. In this application, risk to oneself does not increase the duty owed to others. Economists, however, use the Hand Rule to minimize social costs, which requires balancing the burden of precaution against the reduction in risk to everyone. For economists, risk to oneself counts in determining the duty owed to others. In cases where precaution reduces joint risk (risk to oneself and others), the usual legal interpretation underestimates the reduction in risk relative to the economic interpretation, often by 50%. The …