This paper studies an economic model of tort liability rules and considers litigation between a firm and a consumer, under the assumption that the consumer may not perfectly observe the firm’s action. We compare two alternative tort liability rules: the Negligence rule and strict liability with contributory negligence. We consider the noiseless case as a benchmark, and show that under those two...

Noting that the risk of malpractice liability poses a significant barrier to the provision of volunteer health care in this country, the author analyzes current state and federal legislative approaches designed to overcome the hurdle, including a changed standard of care for malpractice liability from simple negligence to gross negligence, governmental indemnification of volunteer providers, an...

This paper examines auditor liability rules under imperfect information, costly litigation and risk averse auditors. A negligence rule fails in such a setting, because in equilibrium auditors will deviate with positive probability from any given standard. It is shown that strict liability outperforms negligence with respect to risk allocation, and the probability that a desired level of care is...

Physicians typically carry virtually complete malpractice insurance coverage. This contradicts standard theoretical predictions that under a negligence rule of liability there should be no demand for insurance, and insurance policies under moral hazard will contain co-payment provisions. It is argued that judicial 'errors' in defining negligence generate a demand for liability and legal defense...