Understanding Tort Law: Competing Theories on the Nature and Purpose of Torts
By
bookofjoe
Toasted golden, schmeared with insight. Top of the rack.
Summary
This article explores the fundamental question of what constitutes a tort and the purpose of tort law. It examines competing scholarly perspectives, contrasting the instrumentalist view dominant in American legal culture (which sees torts as rules promoting societal welfare by disincentivizing suboptimal behavior and distributing accident costs efficiently) with alternative views more common in other common law jurisdictions that emphasize private law principles. The article appears to be an academic analysis of tort law theory and its philosophical foundations.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledOn one leading scholarly account, torts are legal liability rules that seek to promote the welfare of society at large by disincentivizing socially suboptimal behavior and distributing the costs of accidents to those who can best bear them.
Over the twentieth century, this instrumentalist view of tort law won powerful support in elite American legal culture.
But it has never gained much traction in other common law jurisdictions, where judges and legal scholars standardly suggest that private law domains such as tort are...
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