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Full-Text Articles in Law
Jurors, Judges, And The Mistreatment Of Risk By The Courts, W. Kip Viscusi
Jurors, Judges, And The Mistreatment Of Risk By The Courts, W. Kip Viscusi
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
A sample of almost 500 jury-eligible citizens considered a series of experimental situations involving accidents. The juror sample did not properly apply negligence rules, as their errors were particularly great for low-probability, large-loss cases. They also penalized corporations for undertaking corporate risk analyses that seek to trade off cost versus risk reduction benefits. Jurors' damages assessments were also more prone to error than were responses by a sample of state judges. Judges were less prone to erroneous risk beliefs and less subject to the zero-risk mentality.
Damages To Deter Police Shootings, W. Kip Viscusi, S. Jeffrey
Damages To Deter Police Shootings, W. Kip Viscusi, S. Jeffrey
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Many fatal shootings by police are not warranted. These shootings impose losses on the victims and their families and reflect the failure of existing administrative and legal restraints to deter these unwarranted shootings. This Article proposes a revamping of existing incentives to both provide more adequate compensation to the victims' families and to establish levels of deterrence that are sufficient to curtail unjust fatalities. There are legal criteria for what level of force is "reasonable," but determining reasonableness in practice may be difficult. Practical guidance such as the "21-foot rule" for the threat to warrant a shooting is often problematic. …