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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 …
Reflections On Remedies And Philip Morris V. Williams, Keith N. Hylton
Reflections On Remedies And Philip Morris V. Williams, Keith N. Hylton
Faculty Scholarship
This essay is a series of reflections on the implications of Philip Morris for the tort reform movement, a movement for which I share considerable sympathy. First, I offer an ideal approach to punitive damages-based on my amicus brief in Philip Morris-and apply that approach to the case. I make an effort to find a middle ground between the positions of the plaintiff and defendant because, in any case that reaches the Supreme Court, one will find persuasive arguments to be made on both sides. That middle ground involves largely returning to the Supreme Court's pre-Gore treatment of punitive …