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Restating Duty, Breach, And Proximate Cause In Negligence Law: Descriptive Theory And The Rule Of Law, Patrick J. Kelley

Vanderbilt Law Review

The American Law Institute ("ALI") set out to restate the general common law in the United States in order to promote clarity and certainty in the common law, which were threatened by "the ever increasing volume of the decisions of the [different state] courts, establishing new rules or precedents, and the numerous in- stances in which the decisions are irreconcilable." Clarity and certainty in the common law across the United States, of course, re- quires uniformity. Naturally enough, then, the Institute recognized that a Restatement would promote clarity and certainty in the law only insofar as "the legal profession accepts …