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Articles 1 - 19 of 19
Full-Text Articles in Law
Minding Accidents, Teneille R. Brown
Minding Accidents, Teneille R. Brown
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
Tort doctrine states that breach is all about conduct. Unlike in the criminal law, where jurors must engage in an amateur form of mindreading to evaluate mens rea, jurors are told that they can assess civil negligence by looking only at how the defendant behaved. But this is false. Foreseeability is at the heart of negligence—appearing as the primary tests for duty, breach, and proximate cause. And yet, we cannot ask whether a defendant should have foreseen a risk without interrogating what he subjectively knew, remembered, perceived, or realized at the time. In fact, the focus on actions in negligence …
Hindsight Bias In Antitrust Law, Christopher R. Leslie
Hindsight Bias In Antitrust Law, Christopher R. Leslie
Vanderbilt Law Review
The modern field of study into hindsight bias was launched by Baruch Fischhoff. Fischhoff provided his research subjects with a primer on the 1810s conflict between British forces and Nepalese Gurkhas near Northern India. He suggested four possible outcomes: British victory, Gurkha victory, a peace settlement, and a military stalemate with no peace settlement. The subjects were then divided into five groups. One group was given no information about the ultimate outcome of the conflict. Subjects in each of the remaining four groups were told that one of the four outcomes had, in fact, occurred. The subjects were then asked …
Not So Obvious After All: Patent Law's Nonobviousness Requirement, Ksr, And The Fear Of Hindsight Bias, Glynn S. Lunney Jr, Christian T. Johnson
Not So Obvious After All: Patent Law's Nonobviousness Requirement, Ksr, And The Fear Of Hindsight Bias, Glynn S. Lunney Jr, Christian T. Johnson
Glynn Lunney
Before the creation of the Federal Circuit in 1982, nonobviousness served as the primary gatekeeper for patents. When patent holders sued for infringement and lost, more than sixty percent of the time, they lost on the grounds that their patent was obvious. With the advent of the Federal Circuit, nonobviousness became a much less difficult hurdle to surmount. From 1982 until 2005, when patent holders sued for infringement and lost, obviousness was the reason in less than fifteen percent of the cases. While obviousness remained formally a requirement of patent protection, there can be little doubt that the Federal Circuit …
Judging By Heuristic: Cognitive Illusions In Judicial Decision Making, Chris Guthrie, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Andrew J. Wistrich
Judging By Heuristic: Cognitive Illusions In Judicial Decision Making, Chris Guthrie, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Andrew J. Wistrich
Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
Many people rely on mental shortcuts, or heuristics, to make complex decisions, but this sometimes leads to inaccurate inferences, or cognitive illusions. A recent study suggests such cognitive illusions influence judicial decision making.
Ex Post ≠ Ex Ante: Determining Liability In Hindsight, Kim A. Kamin, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
Ex Post ≠ Ex Ante: Determining Liability In Hindsight, Kim A. Kamin, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
Participants in three conditions (foresight, hindsight, and a modified hindsight condition designed to ameliorate the hindsight effect) assessed whether a municipality should take, or have taken, precautions to protect a riparian property owner from flood damage. In the foresight condition, participants reviewed evidence in the context of an administrative hearing. Hindsight participants reviewed parallel materials in the context of a trial. Three quarters of the participants in foresight concluded that a flood was too unlikely to justify further precautions—a decision that a majority of the participants in hindsight found to be negligent. Participants in hindsight also gave higher estimates for …
Heuristics And Biases In Bankruptcy Judges, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Chris Guthrie, Andrew J. Wistrich
Heuristics And Biases In Bankruptcy Judges, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Chris Guthrie, Andrew J. Wistrich
Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
Do specialized judges make better decisions than judges who are generalists? Specialized judges surely come to know their area of law well, but specialization might also allow judges to develop better, more reliable ways of assessing cases. We assessed this question by presenting a group of specialized judges with a set of hypothetical cases designed to elicit a reliance on common heuristics that can lead judges to make poor decisions. Although the judges resisted the influence of some of these heuristics, they also expressed a clear vulnerability to others. These results suggest that specialization does not produce better judgment.
A Positive Psychological Theory Of Judging In Hindsight, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
A Positive Psychological Theory Of Judging In Hindsight, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
No abstract provided.
Heuristics And Biases In The Court: Ignorance Or Adaptation?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
Heuristics And Biases In The Court: Ignorance Or Adaptation?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
No abstract provided.
Full Disclosure: Cognitive Science, Informants, And Search Warrant Scrutiny, Mary Bowman
Full Disclosure: Cognitive Science, Informants, And Search Warrant Scrutiny, Mary Bowman
Mary N. Bowman
Full Disclosure: Cognitive Science, Informants, and Search Warrant Scrutiny
By Mary Nicol Bowman
This article posits that cognitive biases play a significant role in the gap between the rhetoric regarding Fourth Amendment protection and actual practices regarding search warrant scrutiny, particularly for search warrants based on informants’ tips. Specifically, this article examines the ways in which implicit bias, tunnel vision, priming, and hindsight bias can affect search warrants. These biases can affect each stage of the search warrant process, including targeting decisions, the drafting process, the magistrate’s decision whether to grant the warrant, and post-search review by trial and appellate …
Not So Obvious After All: Patent Law's Nonobviousness Requirement, Ksr, And The Fear Of Hindsight Bias, Glynn S. Lunney Jr, Christian T. Johnson
Not So Obvious After All: Patent Law's Nonobviousness Requirement, Ksr, And The Fear Of Hindsight Bias, Glynn S. Lunney Jr, Christian T. Johnson
Faculty Scholarship
Before the creation of the Federal Circuit in 1982, nonobviousness served as the primary gatekeeper for patents. When patent holders sued for infringement and lost, more than sixty percent of the time, they lost on the grounds that their patent was obvious. With the advent of the Federal Circuit, nonobviousness became a much less difficult hurdle to surmount. From 1982 until 2005, when patent holders sued for infringement and lost, obviousness was the reason in less than fifteen percent of the cases. While obviousness remained formally a requirement of patent protection, there can be little doubt that the Federal Circuit …
Heuristics And Biases In Bankruptcy Judges, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Chris Guthrie, Andrew J. Wistrich
Heuristics And Biases In Bankruptcy Judges, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Chris Guthrie, Andrew J. Wistrich
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Do specialized judges make better decisions than judges who are generalists? Specialized judges surely come to know their area of law well, but specialization might also allow judges to develop better, more reliable ways of assessing cases. We assessed this question by presenting a group of specialized judges with a set of hypothetical cases designed to elicit a reliance on common heuristics that can lead judges to make poor decisions. Although the judges resisted the influence of some of these heuristics, they also expressed a clear vulnerability to others. These results suggest that specialization does not produce better judgment.
It’S Not About The Money: The Role Of Preferences, Cognitive Biases And Heuristics Among Professional Athletes, Michael Mccann
It’S Not About The Money: The Role Of Preferences, Cognitive Biases And Heuristics Among Professional Athletes, Michael Mccann
Law Faculty Scholarship
Professional athletes are often regarded as selfish, greedy, and out-of-touch with regular people. They hire agents who are vilified for negotiating employment contracts that occasionally yield compensation in excess of national gross domestic products. Professional athletes are thus commonly assumed to most value economic remuneration, rather than the love of the game or some other intangible, romanticized inclination.
Lending credibility to this intuition is the rational actor model, a law and economic precept which presupposes that when individuals are presented with a set of choices, they rationally weigh costs and benefits, and select the course of action that maximizes their …
Judging By Heuristic: Cognitive Illusions In Judicial Decision Making, Chris Guthrie, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Andrew J. Wistrich
Judging By Heuristic: Cognitive Illusions In Judicial Decision Making, Chris Guthrie, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Andrew J. Wistrich
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Many people rely on mental shortcuts, or heuristics, to make complex decisions, but this sometimes leads to inaccurate inferences, or cognitive illusions. A recent study suggests such cognitive illusions influence judicial decision making.
Inside The Judicial Mind, Chris Guthrie, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Andrew J. Wistrich
Inside The Judicial Mind, Chris Guthrie, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Andrew J. Wistrich
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
The quality of the judicial system depends upon the quality of decisions that judges make. Even the most talented and dedicated judges surely commit occasional mistakes, but the public understandably expects judges to avoid systematic errors. This expectation, however, might be unrealistic. Psychologists who study human judgment and choice have learned that people frequently fall prey to cognitive illusions that produce systematic errors in judgment. Even though judges are experienced, well-trained, and highly motivated decision makers, they might be vulnerable to cognitive illusions. We report the results of an empirical study designed to determine whether five common cognitive illusions (anchoring, …
Heuristics And Biases In The Court: Ignorance Or Adaptation?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
Heuristics And Biases In The Court: Ignorance Or Adaptation?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
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 …
A Positive Psychological Theory Of Judging In Hindsight, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
A Positive Psychological Theory Of Judging In Hindsight, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Ex Post ≠ Ex Ante: Determining Liability In Hindsight, Kim A. Kamin, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
Ex Post ≠ Ex Ante: Determining Liability In Hindsight, Kim A. Kamin, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Participants in three conditions (foresight, hindsight, and a modified hindsight condition designed to ameliorate the hindsight effect) assessed whether a municipality should take, or have taken, precautions to protect a riparian property owner from flood damage. In the foresight condition, participants reviewed evidence in the context of an administrative hearing. Hindsight participants reviewed parallel materials in the context of a trial. Three quarters of the participants in foresight concluded that a flood was too unlikely to justify further precautions—a decision that a majority of the participants in hindsight found to be negligent. Participants in hindsight also gave higher estimates for …
The Value Of Obvious Empirical Results And The Omniscient Mr. Palans: Response To Mr. Palans' Comments, Theodore Eisenberg
The Value Of Obvious Empirical Results And The Omniscient Mr. Palans: Response To Mr. Palans' Comments, Theodore Eisenberg
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Mr. Palans' comment raises one worthwhile question. Most of the rest of his rant is either off the subject or too shallow to warrant extended discussion. The useful question Mr. Palans raises is whether this research is of value. The article did not defend this mode of work; perhaps I am too immersed in it to always keep in mind the merits of discussing the question. So let me spell out its benefits here.