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Full-Text Articles in Law
Successive Causes And The Enigma Of Duplicated Harm, David A. Fischer
Successive Causes And The Enigma Of Duplicated Harm, David A. Fischer
Faculty Publications
Some of the most intriguing brain teasers in tort law involve the valuation of damages for harm arising from wrongfully inflicted injury to person or property. Consider the following example: A wrongdoer shoots and instantly kills a person in the path of an avalanche that would have killed the person a few seconds later. The person's survivors bring a wrongful death action against the shooter, seeking compensation for the loss of support they would have received from the decedent if she had lived. Should the court require the shooter to pay for loss of support beyond the time that the …
Hindsight Bias And Tort Liability: Avoiding Premature Conclusions, Philip G. Peters Jr.
Hindsight Bias And Tort Liability: Avoiding Premature Conclusions, Philip G. Peters Jr.
Faculty Publications
Cognitive psychologists know that judgments made in hindsight are distorted by two cognitive heuristics-hindsight bias and outcome bias. Hindsight bias makes bad outcomes seem more predictable in hindsight than they were ex ante. Outcome bias induces us to assume that people who cause accidents have been careless. Because of these biases, individuals who know that a bad outcome has occurred tend to evaluate prior conduct more harshly than they would if they were unaware of the actual outcome. In negligence actions, defendants are supposed to be judged by the reasonableness of their conduct, not by its outcome. Jurors are asked …