Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T19:05:38.878Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Oven Bird's Song: Insiders, Outsiders, and Personal Injuries in an American Community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In “Sander County” Illinois, concerns about litigiousness in the local population tended to focus on personal injury suits, although such cases were very rarely brought. This article explores the roots of these concerns in the ideology of the rural community and in the reactions of many residents to social, cultural, and economic changes that created a pervasive sense of social disintegration and loss. Personal injury claims are contrasted with contract actions, which were far more numerous yet were generally viewed with approval and did not give rise to perceptions of litigiousness or greed. The distinction is explained in terms of changing conceptions of the community itself and in terms of the problematic relationships between “insiders” and “outsiders” in Sander County.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1984 The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

*

The title refers to Robert Frost's poem “The Oven Bird,” which describes a response to the perception of disintegration and decay not unlike the response that is the subject of this paper:

      There is a singer everyone has heard,
      Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
      Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
      He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
      Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
      He says the early petal-fall is past
      When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
      On sunny days a moment overcast;
      And comes that other fall we name the fall.
      He says the highway dust is over all.
      The bird would cease and be as other birds
      But that he knows in singing not to sing.
      The question that he frames in all but words
      Is what to make of a diminished thing.

From The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1916, © 1969 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Copyright 1944 by Robert Frost. Reprinted by permission of Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Publishers.

**

I am deeply grateful to the residents of “Sander County” for their generous participation in this study. I would also like to thank the following friends and colleagues who read and commented on this article at one stage or another in its development: Richard L. Abel, James B. Atleson, Guyora Binder, Donald Black, Marc Galanter, Fred Konefsky, Virginia Leary, Richard O. Lempert, Felice J. Levine, John Henry Schlegel, Eric H. Steele, Robert J. Steinfeld, and Barbara Yngvesson. I am also grateful to Linda Kosinski for her skill and patience in typing and retyping the manuscript.

The research on which this article is based was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. SOC 77-11654 and by the American Bar Foundation. Opinions, findings, and conclusions are those of the author and not of the supporting organizations.

References

ABEL, Richard L. (1973) “A Comparative Theory of Dispute Institutions in Society,” 8 Law & Society Review 217.Google Scholar
AUBERT, Vilhelm (1963) “Competition and Dissensus: Two Types of Conflict and of Conflict Resolution,” 7 Journal of Conflict Resolution 26.Google Scholar
BLACK, Donald (1976) The Behavior of Law. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
BLACK, Donald and M.P., BAUMGARTNER (1983) “Toward a Theory of the Third Party,” in Boyum, K. and Mather, L. (eds.), Empirical theories About Courts. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
DOUGLAS, Mary (1966) Purity and Danger. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Limited.Google Scholar
ENGEL, David M. (1978) Code and Custom in a Thai Provincial Court. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
ENGEL, David M.-(1980) “Legal Pluralism in an American Community: Perspectives on a Civil Trial Court,” 1980 American Bar Foundation Research Journal 425.Google Scholar
ERIKSON, Kai T. (1966) Wayward Puritans. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
FELSTINER, William L.F. (1974) “Influences of Social Organization on Dispute Processing,” 9 Law & Society Review 63.Google Scholar
FRIEDMAN, Lawrence M. and Robert V., PERCIVAL (1976) “A Tale of Two Courts: Litigation in Alameda and San Benito Counties,” 10 Law & Society Review 267.Google Scholar
FULLER, Lon L. (1969) “Human Interaction and the Law,” 14 American Journal of Jurisprudence 1.Google Scholar
GALANTER, Marc (1974) “Why the ‘Haves’ Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change,” 9 Law & Society Review 95.Google Scholar
GALANTER, Marc-(1983) “Reading the Landscape of Disputes: What We Know and Don't Know (And Think We Know) About Our Allegedly Contentious and Litigious Society,” 31 UCLA Law Review 4.Google Scholar
GEST, Ted, SOLORZANO, Lucia, SHAPIRO, Joseph P. and Michael, DOAN (1982) “See You in Court,” 93 U.S. News & World Report 58 (December 20).Google Scholar
GREENE, Richard (1983) “Caught in the Better Mousetrap,” 132 Forbes 66 (October 24).Google Scholar
GREENHOUSE, Carol J. (1982) “Nature is to Culture as Praying is to Suing: Legal Pluralism in an American Suburb,” 20 Journal of Legal Pluralism 17.Google Scholar
McINTOSH, Wayne (1980-81) “150 Years of Litigation and Dispute Settlement: A Court Tale,” 15 Law & Society Review 823.Google Scholar
NADER, Laura and Harry F., TODD Jr. (1978) “Introduction: The Dispute Process—Law in Ten Societies,” in Nader, L. and Todd, H. Jr. (eds.), The Disputing Process—Law in Ten Societies. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
NATIONAL CENTER FOR STATE COURTS (1979) State Court Caseload Statistics: Annual Report, 1975.Google Scholar
NATIONAL CENTER FOR STATE COURTS (1982) State Court Caseload Statistics: Annual Report, 1977.Google Scholar
PERHAM, John (1977) “The Dilemma in Product Liability,” 109 Dun's Review 48 (January).Google Scholar
PERIN, Constance (1977) Everything in Its Place. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
ROSENBERG, Maurice (1977) “Contemporary Litigation in the United States,” in Jones, H. (ed.), Legal Institutions Today: English and American Approaches Compared. Chicago: American Bar Association.Google Scholar
ROSS, H. Laurence (1970) Settled Out of Court. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co.Google Scholar
SEYMOUR, Whitney North Jr. (1973) Why Justice Fails. New York: William Morrow & Co.Google Scholar
SIMMEL, Georg (1908/1971) “The Stranger,” in Levine, D. (ed.), On Individuality and Social Forms: Selected Writings. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
STEELE, Eric H. (1975) “Fraud, Dispute and the Consumer: Responding to Consumer Complaints,” 123 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1107.Google Scholar
TAYLOR, Stuart Jr. (1981) “On the Evidence, Americans Would Rather Sue Than Settle,” New York Times (July 5) Section 4, 8.Google Scholar
TODD, Harry F. Jr. (1978) “Litigious Marginals: Character and Disputing in a Bavarian Village,” in Nader, L. and Todd, H. (eds.), The Disputing Process—Law in Ten Societies. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
TONDEL, Lyman M. Jr. (1976) “The Work of the American Bar Association Commission on Medical Professional Liability,” 43 Insurance Counsel Journal 545.Google Scholar
TURNER, Victor W. (1969) The Ritual Process. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co.Google Scholar
YAMAGUCHI, Masao (1977) “Kingship, Theatricality, and Marginal Reality in Japan,” in Jain, R. (ed.), Text and Context: The Social Anthropology of Tradition. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues.Google Scholar
YNGVESSON, Barbara and Patricia, HENNESSEY (1975) “Small Claims, Complex Disputes: A Review of the Small Claims Literature,” 9 Law & Society Review 219.Google Scholar