Torts Commons^™

Who Decides - Community Safety Conventions At The Heart Of Tort Liability, Patrick J. Kelley

Cleveland State Law Review

What we need is a uniformly accepted theory that explains the tort liability system in terms of its ultimate social function. The reason we don't have one, I will argue, is that our understanding of the tort liability system has been skewed by an earlier, flawed attempt at descriptive theory. Before embarking on a new search for a descriptive theory, we first ought to formulate a search plan, sometimes called, forbiddingly, a "theoretical methodology." Using John Finnis's social science methodology, we can identify the two halves of the focal case of tort liability: intentional battery and negligent infliction of personal …