The Economics of U.S. Tort Liability: A Primer

Who Pays for Tort Liability Claims? An Economic Analysis of the U.S. Tort Liability System

Assessing the Insurance Role of Tort Liability after Calabresi

In his landmark 1961 article, Some Thoughts on Risk Distribution and the Law of Torts, Judge Calabresi provides a theoretical framework for analyzing tort liability as a risk-spreading device that functions in a manner similar to insurance. In our article, we examine the insurance objective of tort liability from the standpoint of modern tort law. Since Calabresi’s foundational article, there h...

Accidental death and the rule of joint and several liability.

Most U.S. states have enacted JSL reform, the move from a regime of joint and several liability (JSL) that allows plaintiffs to claim full recovery from any one of multiple defendants to one where defendants are held liable only for the harm they cause. Contrary to previous theoretical work, we show that JSL reform can increase precaution by judgment proof agent by giving "deep pockets" an ince...

What Drives Tort Reform Legislation? Economics and Politics of the State Decisions to Restrict Liability Torts1

This paper studies driving factors behind the timing of state-level tort reform enactments between 1971 and 2005. Using discrete time hazard models, we find the level of litigation activity, as measured by incurred liability insurance losses and premiums, number of lawyers at the state level, and tort cases commenced at the state level and national level, to be the most important and robust det...

A Relevant Intent Theory of Patents

S | 147 A Relevant Intent Theory of Patents Saurabh Vishnubhakat Postdoctoral Associate, Duke University School of Law Durham, NC This article challenges the axiom of U.S. patent law that direct patent infringement is a strict liability tort. Even among critics of the strict liability conception in certain patent contexts, the consensus view of direct infringement remains that impermissibly pra...