Law Commons^™

The Law Of Last Resort, Barry E. Adler

Vanderbilt Law Review

A financially distressed individual or corporation employs the bankruptcy process only as a last resort. The study of bankruptcy law, however, need not, and should not, be an afterthought. The traditional bodies of law that compose private ordering are the laws of property, contract, and tort. Property law establishes private entitlements that can be specifically enforced against the world. Contract law permits individuals to exchange obligations and thus invest one another with entitlements. Tort law creates its own set of entitlements and imposes liability for unwanted interference with those or other entitlements. These bodies of law are often presented as …

Unloved: Tort In The Modern Legal Academy, John C.P. Goldberg

Vanderbilt Law Review

In The Idea of Private Law, Ernest Weinrib makes an arresting claim. He says that private law-by which he means primarily the law of contract, restitution, and especially tort-is "just like love."'

Even members of a discipline devoted to analogies may be forgiven for not immediately perceiving the point of this one, particularly if we focus on the private law of tort. Few law students would mistake negligence, defamation, or battery for love, and if they did, their professors might be concerned for their well-being. Likewise, it is difficult to recall another law professor writing of love and tort in …