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Justice And Reasonable Care In Negligence Law, Richard W. Wright

All Faculty Scholarship

The academic literature generally assumes that an aggregate-risk-utility test is employed to determine whether conduct was reasonable or negligent. This aggregate-risk-utility test is a transparent implementation of the basic impartiality and aggregation principles of utilitarianism and the most popular (Kaldor-Hicks) interpretation of economic efficiency. Thus, the test's assumed prevalence as the criterion of reasonableness in negligence law has been highlighted by legal economists as confirmation of the utilitarian efficiency foundations of tort law, while those, including Ronald Dworkin, who think that the law, including tort law, is or should be grounded on principles of justice have sought to demonstrate that, …