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Articles 1 - 13 of 13
Full-Text Articles in Law
Calculating Compensation Sums For Private Law Wrongs: Underlying Imprecisions, Necessary Questions, And Toward A Plausible Account Of Damages For Lost Years Of Life, Michael Pressman
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The ubiquitous corrective-justice goals of “making a party whole” or “returning a party to the position she was in” are typically understood in monetary terms, and in this context, it is fairly clear what these terms mean. If, as this Article argues, these corrective-justice goals should instead be understood in terms of something that has intrinsic value, such as happiness, various imprecisions come to the fore. This Article identifies and explores these imprecisions and, in so doing, articulates a novel framework that can be used for understanding and systematizing our approach to private law remedies. This is the Article’s first …
Treating Wrongs As Wrongs: An Expressive Argument For Tort Law, Scott Hershovitz
Treating Wrongs As Wrongs: An Expressive Argument For Tort Law, Scott Hershovitz
Articles
The idea that criminal punishment carries a message of condemnation is as commonplace as could be. Indeed, many think that condemnation is the mark of punishment, distinguishing it from other sorts of penalties or burdens. But for all that torts and crimes share in common, nearly no one thinks that tort has similar expressive aims. And that is unfortunate, as the truth is that tort is very much an expressive institution, with messages to send that are different, but no less important, than those conveyed by the criminal law. In this essay, I argue that tort liability expresses the judgment …
Why And How To Compensate Exonerees, Erik Encarnacion
Why And How To Compensate Exonerees, Erik Encarnacion
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
How can we bring greater uniformity to exoneree compensation in a principled and just way? This paper argues that answering this question becomes easier once we identify the principles of justice that best justify and explain compensation statutes. In particular, commentators have assumed incorrectly that the goal of compensating exonerees should be understood primarily in terms of corrective justice, which posits a duty to undo or repair wrongfully inflicted harms. This paper argues, by contrast, that restitutionary justice, which forces parties to relinquish unjust gains, better justifies and explains compensation statutes. The unjust gains at issue are fair wages withheld …
Legal Pluralism In Tort Law Theory: Balancing Instrumental Theories And Corrective Justice, Benjamin Shmueli
Legal Pluralism In Tort Law Theory: Balancing Instrumental Theories And Corrective Justice, Benjamin Shmueli
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Unified-monistic theories of tort law focus on a single goal, usually corrective justice, distributive justice, or optimal deterrence. Unlike these approaches, mixedpluralistic theories attempt to balance between various goals of tort law by integrating several of the considerations underlying these different goals. These theories of legal pluralism reflect ideological diversity, in this case between different theories of the same legal system. This Article discusses the challenge of legal pluralism to settle the possible collision between different goals of tort law within the framework of tort law theory. Starting from a position of support for the mixed-pluralistic thesis, this Article first …
Tort As A Substitute For Revenge, Scott Hershovitz
Tort As A Substitute For Revenge, Scott Hershovitz
Book Chapters
In 1872, the Supreme Court of Illinois decided a case called Alcorn v Mitchell. It was not the first litigation between the parties. Some years earlier, Alcorn had sued Mitchell for trespass. That suit did not go well, and at the close of the trial, just after the court adjourned, Alcorn spit in Mitchell’s face. Mitchell then turned the tables and sued Alcorn for battery. He won a judgment for $1,000, which was a lot of money back then—depending on how you think about the change in value of money over time, the present day equivalent would range from just …
Corrective Justice For Civil Recourse Theorists, Scott Hershovitz
Corrective Justice For Civil Recourse Theorists, Scott Hershovitz
Articles
Though I think the civil recourse critique of the leading conceptions of corrective justice is in some respects misguided, I do not want to join up to the thrust and parry here. My aim in this Article is to show that there is a better conception of corrective justice than the ones that Goldberg and Zipursky target, that this conception of corrective justice is untouched by the civil recourse critique, and that civil recourse is best understood as a corrective justice account of tort. In other words, I aim to explain corrective justice for civil recourse theorists.
The "Enlightened Barbarity" Of Inclusive Fitness And Wrongful Death: Biological Justifications For An Investment Theory Of Loss In Wycko V. Gnodtke, Ryan Shannon
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Wrongful death laws should permit and encourage courts and juries to consider the survivors' investment in decedents when determining wrongful death damages, given new biological justifications for this theory of loss. The investment theory of damages, which permits an award of damages based on the investment of financial resources relatives make in one another, originated in Michigan's courts in the early 1 960s, but as of present day has been largely abrogated. In the context of modern understandings of evolutionary biology, including kin selection theory and sociobiology, the investment theory of recovery accords with the goals of corrective justice as …
Coordinating Sanctions In Torts, Kyle D. Logue
Coordinating Sanctions In Torts, Kyle D. Logue
Articles
This Article begins with the standard Law and Economics account of tort law as a regulatory tool or system of deterrence, that is, as a means of giving regulated parties the optimal ex ante incentives to minimize the costs of accidents. Building on this fairly standard (albeit not universally accepted) picture of tort law, the Article asks the question how tort law should adjust, if at all, to coordinate with already existing non-tort systems of regulation. Thus, if a particular activity is already subject to extensive agency-based regulation (whether in the form of command-and-control requirements or in the form of …
Reparations As Redistribution, Kyle D. Logue
Reparations As Redistribution, Kyle D. Logue
Articles
The most controversial, and most intriguing, remedy sought by proponents of slavery reparations involves massive redistribution of wealth from whites to blacks within the United States. This is not to say that reparations proponents have focused only on racial redistribution. Some have called for an official apology from the U.S. government. Others seek the creation of a foundation or institute, funded by U.S. tax dollars, to be devoted to furthering the interests of African Americans, including the funding of K- 12 educational programs for black children and the funding of general civil rights advocacy to counteract the lingering effects of …
The Genie And The Bottle: Collateral Sources Under The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, Kenneth S. Abraham, Kyle D. Logue
The Genie And The Bottle: Collateral Sources Under The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, Kenneth S. Abraham, Kyle D. Logue
Articles
The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 (the Fund) was part of legislation enacted just eleven days after the terrorist attacks of September 11th in the wake of extraordinary national loss. It is possible, therefore, that the Fund will always be considered an urgent and unique response to the unprecedented events of September 11th. On that view, the character of the Fund will have little longterm policy significance. It is equally possible, however, that the enactment of the Fund will prove to be a seminal moment in the history of tort and compensation law. The Fund adopts a new …
Pragmatism Regained, Christopher Kutz
Pragmatism Regained, Christopher Kutz
Michigan Law Review
Jules Coleman's The Practice of Principle serves as a focal point for current, newly intensified debates in legal theory, and provides some of the deepest, most sustained reflections on methodology that legal theory has seen. Coleman is one of the leading legal philosophers in the Anglo-American world, and his writings on tort theory, contract theory, the normative foundations of law and economics, social choice theory, and analytical jurisprudence have been the point of departure for much of the most interesting activity in the field for the last three decades. Indeed, the origin of this book lies in Oxford University's invitation …
Rights And Wrongs, John C.P. Goldberg
Rights And Wrongs, John C.P. Goldberg
Michigan Law Review
If one were to ask an American lawyer or legal scholar for a definition of liberalism, her explanation would likely include mention of constitutional provisions such as the First and Fourth Amendments. This is because liberalism is today understood primarily as a theory of what government officials may not do to citizens. Its most immediate expression in law is thus taken to be those parts of the Bill of Rights that set limits on state action. This tendency to conceive of liberalism exclusively as a theory of rights against government is a twentieth century phenomenon. To be sure, liberalism has …
Tort Law As Corrective Justice: A Pragmatic Justification For Jury Adjudication, Catharine Pierce Wells
Tort Law As Corrective Justice: A Pragmatic Justification For Jury Adjudication, Catharine Pierce Wells
Michigan Law Review
The purpose of this article is to develop a pragmatic analysis of corrective justice that will serve as a partial justification for current practices of tort adjudication. Part I discusses the concept of corrective justice and explores its relationship to the problem of justifying tort law. Part II argues that certain contemporary theories of corrective justice fail to provide an adequate basis for regarding individual tort outcomes as just. Part III develops a pragmatic account of corrective justice and argues that it accurately describes current practices of tort adjudication. Finally, Part IV argues that these practices are justified in the …