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Judges As Tort Law Un-Makers: Recent California Experience With "New" Torts, Stephen D. Sugarman

Stephen D Sugarman

Part of the DePaul Law School's 1999 Clifford Symposium, this article explores the role of "judges as lawmakers" by examining the tort law decisions of the California Supreme Court for the past 15 years -- the final three years that Chief Justice Rose Bird sat on the court and the twelve years after she was removed from office. The article presents the sea change in tort law thinking, doctrine and results that have taken place over this period of time -- essentially through the abandonment of notions of enterprise liability (Calabresi thinking about cheaper cost avoiders and cheaper loss spreaders). …