Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in Torts
Integrity And The Incongruities Of Justice: A Review Of Daniel Markovits, A Modern Legal Ethics, Benjamin C. Zipursky
Integrity And The Incongruities Of Justice: A Review Of Daniel Markovits, A Modern Legal Ethics, Benjamin C. Zipursky
Faculty Scholarship
Daniel Markovits’ recent book, A Modern Legal Ethics: Adversary Advocacy in a Democratic Age, begins by articulating an ethical quandary common to litigators: how can I advocate zealously for a client whose story might not be true and whose causes might not be just? In Markovits’ hands, the dilemmas of the adversary advocate are transformed into a philosophical puzzle about the nature of integrity and the very idea of fidelity to a client. Lawyers face a far more onerous ethical burden than is sometimes recognized, Markovits argues, for the adversary advocate in our legal system is professionally obligated to lie …
Torts As Wrongs, John C.P. Goldberg, Benjamin C. Zipursky
Torts As Wrongs, John C.P. Goldberg, Benjamin C. Zipursky
Faculty Scholarship
Torts scholars hold different views on why tort law shifts costs from plaintiffs to defendants. Some invoke notions of justice, some efficiency, and some compensation. Nearly all seem to agree, however, that tort law is about the allocation of losses. This Article challenges the widespread embrace of loss-based accounts as fundamentally misguided. It is wrongs not losses that lie at the foundation of tort law. Tort suits are about affording plaintiffs an avenue of civil recourse against those who have wronged them. Although torts were once routinely understood as wrongs, since Holmes’s time, tort scholars have tended to suppose that …
Uncertainty And The Advantage Of Collective Settlement Symposium: The Limits Of Predictability And The Value Of Uncertainty: Sixteenth Annual Clifford Symposium On Tort Law And Social Policy, Howard M. Erichson
Faculty Scholarship
Judgments are printed in black and white; reality comes in shades of gray. The settlement palette available to negotiating parties, unlike the adjudication palette available to judges and juries, offers a range of grays to suit the realities of uncertain liability, uncertain causation, and uncertain damages. Settlement thus offers certain advantages over adjudication. I am not referring to process advantages, such as speed, economy, privacy, and relationship preservation. Rather, I am referring to the idea that settlements may offer outcomes that more accurately comport with justice under the relevant facts and law. There is, of course, a long-running debate over …
The Easy Case For Products Liability: A Response To Polinsky & Shavell, Benjamin C. Zipursky, John C.P. Goldberg
The Easy Case For Products Liability: A Response To Polinsky & Shavell, Benjamin C. Zipursky, John C.P. Goldberg
Faculty Scholarship
In their article “The Uneasy Case for Product Liability,” Professors Polinsky and Shavell assert the extraordinary claim that there should be no tort liability - none at all - for injuries caused by widely-sold products. In particular, they claim to have found convincing evidence that the threat of tort liability creates no additional incentives to safety beyond those already provided by regulatory agencies and market forces, and that tort compensation adds little or no benefit to injury victims beyond the compensation already provided by various forms of insurance. In this response, we explain that, even on its own narrow terms, …