Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T21:04:25.198Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Distributive Justice through Tort (and Why Sociolegal Scholars Should Care)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Anita Bernstein
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Drawing on two books central to an emerging sociolegal literature about tort—Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice, a collection edited by David M. Engel and Michael McCann, and Torts, Egalitarianism and Distributive Justice, a monograph by Tsachi Keren‐Paz—this essay argues that tort law in the United States redistributes wealth in ways that ought to trouble sociolegal scholars and enlist their reformist energy. Read together, the two volumes offer considerable description and critique of a distributive injustice, and lead to important proposals for change.

Type
Review Essay
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , Fall 2010 , pp. 1099 - 1135
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2010 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Abel, Richard L. 1986. Should Tort Law Protect Property Against Accidental Loss? San Diego Law Review 23:79–123.Google Scholar
American Law Institute. 2009. Restatement (Third) of Torts: Liability for Physical and Emotional Harm (Tentative Draft No. 6).Google Scholar
Arlen, Jennifer H. 1992. Should Defendants' Wealth Matter? Journal of Legal Studies 21:413–29.Google Scholar
Baker, Tom. 20052006. Liability Insurance as Tort Regulation: Six Ways That Liability Insurance Shapes Tort Law in Action. Connecticut Insurance Law Journal 12:1–16.Google Scholar
Baker, Tom. 2009. Liability Insurance at the Tort‐Crime Boundary. In Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice, ed. Engel, David M. and McCann, Michael, 66–79. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Bender, Leslie. 1988. A Lawyer's Primer on Feminist Theory and Tort. Journal of Legal Education 38:3–46.Google Scholar
Benda‐Beckmann von, Keebet. 2009. Torts and Notions of Community: More Observations on Units of Legal Culture. In Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice, ed. Engel, David M. and McCann, Michael, 39–46. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Berger, Margaret A., and Twerski, Aaron D. 2005. Unmasking Daubert. Michigan Law Review 104:257–89.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Anita. 2002. The Communities that Make Standards of Care Possible. Chicago-Kent Law Review 77:735–68.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Anita. 2003. Markets of Mothers. In Torts Stories, ed. Rabin, Robert L. and Stephen, D. Sugarman, , 151–78. New York: Foundation Press.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Anita. 2006. Keep It Simple: An Explanation of the Rule of No Recovery for Pure Economic Loss. Arizona Law Review 48:773–811.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Anita. 2009. Fellow‐Feeling and Gender in the Law of Personal Injury. Journal of Law and Policy 17: 295–381.Google Scholar
Bérubé, Michael. 2009. What's the Matter with Cultural Studies? Chronicle Review, Sept. 14. http://chronicle.com/article/Whats‐the‐Matter‐With/48334/ (accessed June 2, 2010).Google Scholar
Black's Law Dictionary. 2009. St. Paul: West Group.Google Scholar
Bloom, Anne. 2009. Regulating Middlesex. In Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice, ed. Engel, David M. and McCann, Michael, 137–55. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Cane, Peter. 2008. Book Reviews: Torts, Egalitarianism and Distributive Justice by Tsachi Keren‐Paz. Torts Law Journal 16:4–16.Google Scholar
Chamallas, Martha. 1998. The Architecture of Bias: Deep Structures in Tort Law. University of Pennsylvania Law Review 146:463–531.Google Scholar
Chamallas, Martha. 2009a. Discrimination and Outrage: Exploring the Gap between Civil Rights and Tort Recoveries. In Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice, ed. Engel, David M. and McCann, Michael, 119–36. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Chamallas, Martha. 2009b. Unpacking Emotional Distress: Sexual Exploitation, Reproductive Harm, and Fundamental Rights. Wake Forest Law Review 44:1109–30.Google Scholar
Chamallas, Martha, and Wriggins, Jennifer. 2010. The Measure of Injury: Race, Gender, and Tort Law. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Conan Doyle, Arthur. 1894. Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz.Google Scholar
Davis, Mary J. 1996. The Supreme Court and Our Culture of Irresponsibility. Wake Forest Law Review 31:1075–1139.Google Scholar
Dobbs, Dan B. 2008. Undertakings and Special Relationships in Claims for Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress. Arizona Law Review 50:49–69.Google Scholar
Engel, David M. 2009. Discourses of Causation in Injury Cases: Exploring Thai and American Legal Cultures. In Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice, ed. Engel, David M. and McCann, Michael, 251–68. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Engel, David M., and McCann, Michael, eds. 2009. Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Epp, Charles. 2009. The Role of Tort Lawsuits in Reconstructing the Issue of Police Abuse in the United Kingdom. In Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice, ed. Engel, David M. and McCann, Michael, 175–91. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Feldman, Eric. 2009. Suing Doctors in Japan: Structure, Culture, and the Rise of Malpractice Litigation. In Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice, ed. Engel, David M. and McCann, Michael, 211–32. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Felstiner, William L. F., Abel, Richard L., and Sarat, Austin. 19801981. The Emergence and Transformation of Disputes: Naming, Blaming, Claiming… . Law and Society Review 15(3/4): 631–54.Google Scholar
Finley, Lucinda. 2004. The Hidden Victims of Tort Reform: Women, Children, and the Elderly. Emory Law Journal 53:1263–1314.Google Scholar
Friedman, Lawrence M., and Ladinsky, Jack. 1967. Social Change and the Law of Industrial Accidents. Columbia Law Review 67:50–82.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc. 1974. Why the “Haves” Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change. Law and Society Review 9 (1): 95–160.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc. 2009. India's Tort Deficit: Sketch for a Historical Portrait. In Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice, ed. Engel, David M. and McCann, Michael, 47–65. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Green, Michael D. 1988. The Paradox of Statutes of Limitations in Toxic Substances Litigation. California Law Review 76: 965–1014.Google Scholar
Goldberg, John C. P., Sebok, Anthony J., and Zipursky, Benjamin C. 2008. Tort Law: Responsibilities and Redress, 2nd ed. New York: Aspen Publishers.Google Scholar
Grey, Betsy J. 2009. Neuroscience and Emotional Harm in Tort Law: Rethinking the American Approach to Free‐Standing Emotional Distress Tort Claims. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1499989 (accessed May 28, 2010).Google Scholar
Haltom, William, and McCann, Michael. 2009. Framing Fast‐Food Litigation: Tort Claims, Mass Media, and the Politics of Responsibility in the United States. In Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice, ed. Engel, David M. and McCann, Michael, 97–118. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Hans, Valerie. 2009. Juries as Conduits for Culture? In Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice, ed. Engel, David M. and McCann, Michael, 80–96. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Holmes, Oliver Wendell. 1881. The Common Law. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co.Google Scholar
James, Fleming. 19581959. Tort Law in Midstream: Its Challenge to the Judicial Process. Buffalo Law Review 8:315–44.Google Scholar
Keren‐Paz, Tsachi. 2007. Torts, Egalitarianism and Distributive Justice. Hampshire, UK: Ashgate Publishing Limited.Google Scholar
Kritzer, Herbert M. 2009. Early Empirical Research on Civil Justice. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1428519## (accessed May 28, 2010).Google Scholar
Kritzer, Herbert M., and Silbey, Susan, eds. 2003. In Litigation Do the “Haves” Still Come Out Ahead? Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Kulynych, Jessica. 2001. No Playing in the Public Sphere: Democratic Theory and the Exclusion of Children. Social Theory and Practice 27 (2): 231–64.Google Scholar
Levine, Felice J. 1990. Goose Bumps and “The Search for Intelligent Life” in Sociolegal Studies: After Twenty‐Five Years. Law and Society Review 21 (1): 7–33.Google Scholar
Levit, Nancy. 1992. Ethereal Torts. George Washington Law Review 61:136–92.Google Scholar
Llewellyn, Karl N. 1960. The Bramble Bush: On Our Law and Its Study. Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana Publications.Google Scholar
Mather, Lynn. 2009. Lawyers and Solicitors Separated by a Common Legal System: Anti‐Tobacco Litigation in the United States and Britain. In Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice, ed. Engel, David M. and McCann, Michael, 192–210. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, Richard S. 1994. Tort Law and Power: A Policy‐Oriented Analysis. Suffolk University Law Review 28:1069–97.Google Scholar
Munger, Frank. 2001. Inquiry and Activism in Law and Society. Law and Society Review 35:7–20.Google Scholar
Nelken, David. 1997. Comparing Legal Cultures. Aldershot, UK: Dartmouth.Google Scholar
Nelken, David. 2009. Law, Liability, and Culture. In Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice, ed. Engel, David M. and McCann, Michael, 21–38. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Perry, Stephen R. 1992. Protected Interests and Undertakings in the Law of Negligence. University of Toronto Law Journal 42:247–317.Google Scholar
Posner, Richard A. 1982. Torts: Cases and Economic Analysis. Boston: Little Brown and Company.Google Scholar
Pound, Roscoe. 1922. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Priest, George L. 1987. The Current Insurance Crisis and Modern Tort Law. Yale Law Journal 96:1521–90.Google Scholar
Prosser, William L. 1941. Handbook of the Law of Torts. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Ross, H. Laurence. 1980. Settled Out of Court: The Social Process of Insurance Claims Adjustments. New York: Aldine Publishing.Google Scholar
Rubin, Paul H., and Shepherd, Joanna M. 2007. Tort Reform and Accidental Deaths. Journal of Law and Economics 50 (2): 221–38.Google Scholar
Scales, Ann. 2009. “Nobody Broke It, It Just Broke”: Causation as an Instrument of Obfuscation and Oppression. In Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice, ed. Engel, David M. and McCann, Michael, 269–86. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Gary T. 1991. The Myth of the Ford Pinto Case. Rutgers Law Review 43: 1013–68.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Eileen. 1999. On Recovery in Tort for Pure Economic Loss. University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 32:403–39.Google Scholar
Sterling, Joyce, and Reichman, Nancy. 2009. The Cultural Agenda of Tort Litigation: Constructing Responsibility in the Rocky Mountain Frontier. In Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice, ed. Engel, David M. and McCann, Michael, 287–306. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Tamanaha, Brian Z. 2009. Understanding Legal Realism. Texas Law Review 87:731–85.Google Scholar
Tanase, Takao. 2009. The Role of the Judiciary in Asbestos Injury Compensation in Japan. In Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice, ed. Engel, David M. and McCann, Michael, 233–50. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Tomlins, Christopher L. 1993. Law, Labor, and Ideology in the Early American Republic. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
West, Robin. 1988. Jurisprudence and Gender. University of Chicago Law Review 55:1–72.Google Scholar
White, G. Edward. 1997. The American Law Institute and the Triumph of Modernist Jurisprudence. Law and History Review 15:1–47.Google Scholar
White, G. Edward. 2003. Tort Law in America: An Intellectual History, expanded ed. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Woodhouse, Barbara Bennett. 2008. Hidden in Plain Sight: The Tragedy of Children's Rights from Ben Franklin to Lionel Tate. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wriggins, Jennifer B. 1997. Genetics, IQ, Determinism, and Torts: The Example of Discovery in Lead Exposure Litigation. Boston University Law Review 77:1025–88Google Scholar
Wriggins, Jennifer B. 2005. Toward a Feminist Revision of Torts. American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy and the Law 13:139–59.Google Scholar
Wriggins, Jennifer B. 2009. Whiteness, Equal Treatment, and the Valuation of Injury in Torts, 1900–1949. In Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice, ed. Engel, David M. and McCann, Michael, 156–74. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Wright, Vanessa R., Chau, Michelle, and Aratani, Yumiko. 2010. Who Are America's Poor Children? The Official Story. Columbia University, National Center for Children in Poverty. http://www.nccp.org/publications/pdf/text_912.pdf (accessed June 19, 2010).Google Scholar

United Kingdom

Vaughan v. Menlove, 132 Eng. Rep. 490 (C.P. 1837).Google Scholar

United States

Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. —, 129 S. Ct. 1937 (2009).Google Scholar
Matthews v. Amberwood Associates Limited Partnership, Inc., 719 A.2d 119 (Md. 1998).Google Scholar
Rowland v. Christian, 443 P.2d 561, 566 (Cal. 1968).Google Scholar
Tunkl v. Regents of the University of California, 383 P.2d 441 (Cal. 1963).Google Scholar
United States v. Carroll Towing, 159 F.2d 169 (2d Cir. 1947).Google Scholar

Statutes Cited

Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109‐2, subsec. 4(a), 119 Stat. 9.Google Scholar
Virginia Code Annotated subsec. 8.01‐581.15.Google Scholar