Law Commons^™

The Effect Of Tort Reform On Tort Case Filings, Patricia W. Moore

Faculty Articles

Does so-called "tort reform" decrease tort case filings? In Texas and other states that have enacted numerous rounds of tort reform, the answer appears to be a resounding "yes," at least as of the year 2000. More recent evidence from Oklahoma supports that conclusion and provides an interesting case study within the tort reform juggernaut.

During at least the past twenty years, tort reformers have achieved substantial legislative successes and, some would argue, public relations victories. Yet their desire for more "reform" seems insatiable, and their legislative agenda rarely sleeps.

Tort reform bills bloom perennially in the Oklahoma legislature, and …

Dispatches From The Tort Wars, Anthony J. Sebok

Faculty Articles

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, as a political matter, the modern tort reform movement has been very successful. This essay reviews three books that either rebut the tort reform movement's central theses or analyze the strategies that allowed the movement to prevail. I discuss Tom Baker's The Medical Malpractice Myth, Herbert Kritzer's Risks, Reputations, and Rewards: Contingency Fee Legal Practice in the United States, and William Haltom & Michael McCann's Distorting the Law: Politics, Media, and the Litigation Crisis. Although each book has a very different focus from the other two, I argue that a common theme …

Ethical Issues In Asbestos Litigation, Lester Brickman

Faculty Articles

Asbestos litigation has given rise to over 50,000,000 claims against 8400 former producers, distributors, installers and sellers of asbestos-containing products. To date, 850,000 claimants have sought compensation, costing businesses and insurance companies over $70 billion and resulting in more than 70 bankruptcies. Over 100,000 deaths are attributable to asbestos exposure with an additional 40,000 deaths anticipated over the next 30 years. Despite the significance of the ethical issues generated by the processes of acquiring, pressing and settling the most massive litigation in history, the legal literature is substantially devoid of any such discussion. One possible reason for this paucity of …

Liberating Progress And The Free Market From The Specter Of Tort Liability (Book Review), Vincent R. Johnson

Faculty Articles

That all is not well with tort law cannot seriously be doubted. In Liability: The Legal Revolution and Its Consequences, Peter Huber attempts to chronicle the changes in tort doctrine over the past thirty or so years that have brought tort law to its present crisis, and to prescribe sweeping remedial actions capable of defining a more intelligent course of accident compensation. Drastic measures are necessary, Huber argues, because of the magnitude of the emergency.

Huber’s critique of modern tort law is always provocative and often perceptive and enlightening. The book identifies many jurisprudential trouble-spots which cry out for reform, …