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Full-Text Articles in Law
Tort Theory And The Restatement, In Retrospect, Keith N. Hylton
Tort Theory And The Restatement, In Retrospect, Keith N. Hylton
Faculty Scholarship
This is my third paper on the Restatement (Third) of Torts. In my first paper, The Theory of Tort Doctrine and the Restatement (Third) of Torts, I offered a positive economic theory of the tort doctrine that had been presented in the Restatement (Third) of Torts: General Principles, and also an optimistic vision of how positive theoretical analysis could be integrated with the Restatement project. In my second paper, The Economics of the Restatement and of the Common Law, I set out the utilitarian-economic theory of how the common law litigation process could generate optimal (efficient, wealth-maximizing) rules and compared …
Negligence And Two-Sided Causation, Keith N. Hylton, Haizhen Lin, Hyo-Youn Chu
Negligence And Two-Sided Causation, Keith N. Hylton, Haizhen Lin, Hyo-Youn Chu
Faculty Scholarship
We extend the economic analysis of negligence and intervening causation to "two-sided causation" scenarios. In the two-sided causation scenario the effectiveness of the injurer's care depends on some intervention, and the risk of harm generated by the injurer's failure to take care depends on some other intervention. We find that the distortion from socially optimal care is more severe in the two-sided causation scenario than in the one-sided causation scenario, and generally in the direction of excessive care. The practical lesson is that the likelihood that injurers will have optimal care incentives under the negligence test in the presence of …
Information And Causation In Tort Law: Generalizing The Learned Hand Test For Causation Cases, Keith N. Hylton
Information And Causation In Tort Law: Generalizing The Learned Hand Test For Causation Cases, Keith N. Hylton
Faculty Scholarship
This paper discusses the economics of causation in tort law, describing precise implications for precautionary incentives when courts are and are not perfectly informed. With precautionary incentives identified, we can ask whether the causation inquiry enhances welfare, and if so under what conditions. Perhaps the most important innovation applies to the Hand Formula. When causation is an issue, the probability of causal intervention should be part of the Hand test, and the generalized Hand test offers a method of distinguishing significant classes of causation cases. I close with implications for the moral significance of causation and for economic analysis of …
Causation In Tort Law: A Reconsideration, Keith N. Hylton
Causation In Tort Law: A Reconsideration, Keith N. Hylton
Faculty Scholarship
Causation is a source of confusion in tort theory, as well as a flash point for the debate between consequentialist and deontological legal theorists.1 Consequentialists argue that causation is generally determined by the policy grounds for negligence, not by a technical analysis of the facts.2 Conversely, deontologists reject the view that policy motives determine causation findings.
Causation has also generated different approaches within the consequentialist school. Some take an essentially forward- looking approach to formalizing causation analysis, finding causation analysis to be subsumed within the Hand Formula.4 Another approach within the consequentialist school closely examines the incentive …
Negligence, Causation, And Incentives For Care, Keith N. Hylton, Haizhen Lin
Negligence, Causation, And Incentives For Care, Keith N. Hylton, Haizhen Lin
Faculty Scholarship
We present a new model of negligence and causation and examine the influence of the negligence test, in the presence of intervening causation, on the level of care. In this model, the injurer's decision to take care reduces the likelihood of an accident only in the event that some nondeterministic intervention occurs. The effects of the negligence test depend on the information available to the court, and the manner in which the test is implemented. The key effect of the negligence test, in the presence of intervening causation, is to induce actors to take into account the distribution of the …
New Private Law Theory And Tort Law: A Comment, Keith N. Hylton
New Private Law Theory And Tort Law: A Comment, Keith N. Hylton
Faculty Scholarship
This comment was prepared for the Harvard Law Review symposium on “The New Private Law,” as a response to Benjamin Zipursky’s principal paper on torts. I find Zipursky’s reliance on Cardozo’s Palsgraf opinion as a foundational source of tort theory troubling, for two reasons. First, Cardozo fails to offer a consistent theoretical framework for tort law in his opinions, many of which are difficult to reconcile with one another. Second, Palsgraf should be understood as an effort by Cardozo to provide greater predictability, within a special class of proximate cause cases, by reallocating decision-making power from juries to judges. It …
Property Rules And Defensive Conduct In Tort Law Theory, Keith N. Hylton
Property Rules And Defensive Conduct In Tort Law Theory, Keith N. Hylton
Faculty Scholarship
What role does defensive conduct play in a utilitarian theory of tort law? Why are rational (as opposed to instinctive) defensive actions permitted by tort doctrine?
To address these questions I will build on the property and liability rules framework. I argue that defensive conduct plays an important role in establishing the justification for and understanding the function of property rules, such as trespass doctrine. I show that when defensive actions are taken into account, property rules are socially preferable to liability rules in low transaction cost settings, because they obviate costly defensive actions. I extend the framework to provide …
A Watershed Moment: Reversals Of Tort Theory In The Nineteenth Century, Jed Handelsman Shugerman
A Watershed Moment: Reversals Of Tort Theory In The Nineteenth Century, Jed Handelsman Shugerman
Faculty Scholarship
This article offers a new assessment of the stages in the development of fault and strict liability and their justifications in American history. Building from the evidence that a wide majority of state courts adopted Fletcher v. Rylands and strict liability for unnatural or hazardous activities in the late nineteenth century, a watershed moment turns to the surprising reversals in tort ideology in the wake of flooding disasters.
An established view of American tort law is that the fault rule supposedly prevailed over strict liability in the nineteenth century, with some arguing that it was based on instrumental arguments to …
Tort Negligence, Cost-Benefit Analysis, And Tradeoffs: A Closer Look At The Controversy, Kenneth Simons
Tort Negligence, Cost-Benefit Analysis, And Tradeoffs: A Closer Look At The Controversy, Kenneth Simons
Faculty Scholarship
What is the proper role of cost-benefit analysis in understanding the tort concept of negligence or reasonable care? A straightforward question, you might think. But it is a question that manages to elicit groans of exasperation from those on both sides of the controversy.
For most utilitarians and adherents to law and economics, the answer is obvious: to say that people should not be negligent is to say that they should minimize the sum of the costs of accidents and the costs of preventing accidents. Under the economic formulation of the famous Learned Hand test, they should take a precaution …
Duty In Tort Law: An Economic Approach, Keith N. Hylton
Duty In Tort Law: An Economic Approach, Keith N. Hylton
Faculty Scholarship
Theories of tort law have focused on the breach and causation components of negligence, saying little if anything about duty. This paper provides a positive economic theory of duty doctrine. The theory that best explains duty doctrines in tort law is the same as the theory that explains strict liability doctrine. The core function of both sets of doctrines is to regulate the frequency or scale of activities that have substantial external effects. Strict liability aims to suppress or tax activities that carry unusually large external costs. Duty doctrines, especially those relieving actors of a duty of care, serve several …
Discontinuities, Causation, And Grady's Uncertainty Theorem, Stephen G. Marks
Discontinuities, Causation, And Grady's Uncertainty Theorem, Stephen G. Marks
Faculty Scholarship
In a series of articles, Mark Grady considers the problem of discontinuity under a tort negligence regime. The discontinuity can be described as follows. A potential injurer who adopts the optimal level of precaution is completely shielded from liability under the negligence system even though accidents occur. A very small decrease in the level of precaution below the optimal level suddenly exposes the potential injurer to liability for those accidents. This discontinuity makes the expected cost of under-investment in precaution greater than the expected cost of overinvestment. In a world where there is uncertainty about the optimal level of precaution …
Negligence, Causation And Information, Stephen G. Marks
Negligence, Causation And Information, Stephen G. Marks
Faculty Scholarship
This note suggests a model to unify, in a simple information-based framework, the notion of negligence and the various notions of causation. In effect, the model demonstrates that negligence, probabilistic cause and cause-in-fact represent an identical concept applied to different information sets. This note uses the unified framework to develop a simple algorithm for the practical application of the principles of causation in the law of negligence.