IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/rlecon/v15y2019i1p19n6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Litigation and the Product Rule: A Rent Seeking Approach

Author

Listed:
  • De Mot Jef

    (Faculty of Business Economics - Policy Management, Hasselt University, Hasselt, Belgium)

  • Miceli Thomas J.

    (Department of Economics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CTUSA)

Abstract

This paper examines the suppression of the product rule in litigation from a rent seeking perspective. We show that there are some important arguments in favor of not applying it. First, the expected judgment is always lower when the product rule is used, especially for relatively strong cases. Second, litigation expenditures are often larger when the product rule is used, again especially for relatively strong cases. Both of these factors decrease the plaintiff’s expected value for such cases. Third, when the product rule is suppressed, the plaintiff files all cases that he or she should win. This is not so when the product rule is applied. Fourth, for many of the weakest cases (the ones in which the quality of all issues is rather weak), the expected value of the plaintiff’s case is larger when the product rule is used. The main argument in favor of the application of the product rule is that when the rule is suppressed, plaintiffs file more cases in which the quality of one issue is weak and the quality of the other issue is strong. However, the influence of this factor on the ex ante incentives of the injurer is relatively small.

Suggested Citation

  • De Mot Jef & Miceli Thomas J., 2019. "Litigation and the Product Rule: A Rent Seeking Approach," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 15(1), pages 1-19, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:rlecon:v:15:y:2019:i:1:p:19:n:6
    DOI: 10.1515/rle-2017-0044
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/rle-2017-0044
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/rle-2017-0044?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jia, Hao & Skaperdas, Stergios & Vaidya, Samarth, 2013. "Contest functions: Theoretical foundations and issues in estimation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 211-222.
    2. Shavell, Steven, 1985. "Uncertainty over Causation and the Determination of Civil Liability," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(3), pages 587-609, October.
    3. Katz, Avery, 1988. "Judicial decisionmaking and litigation expenditure," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 127-143, December.
    4. Szidarovszky, Ferenc & Okuguchi, Koji, 1997. "On the Existence and Uniqueness of Pure Nash Equilibrium in Rent-Seeking Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 135-140, January.
    5. Farmer, Amy & Pecorino, Paul, 1999. "Legal Expenditure as a Rent-Seeking Game," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 100(3-4), pages 271-288, September.
    6. Hirshleifer, Jack & Osborne, Evan, 2001. "Truth, Effort, and the Legal Battle," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 108(1-2), pages 169-195, July.
    7. Stergios Skaperdas & Samarth Vaidya, 2012. "Persuasion as a contest," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 51(2), pages 465-486, October.
    8. Roger D. Congleton & Arye L. Hillman (ed.), 2015. "Companion to the Political Economy of Rent Seeking," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15325.
    9. Miceli, Thomas J., 1996. "Cause in fact, proximate cause, and the hand rule: Extending Grady's positive economic theory of negligence," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 473-482, December.
    10. Guerra Alice & Luppi Barbara & Parisi Francesco, 2019. "Standards of Proof and Civil Litigation: A Game-Theoretic Analysis," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 19(1), pages 1-19, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Osório, António (António Miguel) & Luppi, Barbara, 2019. "Argumentation Quantity and Quality: A Litigation Success Function," Working Papers 2072/376027, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    2. Osório-Costa, António M., 2015. "Argumentation Quantity and Quality: A Litigation Success Function," MPRA Paper 63275, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Jia, Hao & Skaperdas, Stergios & Vaidya, Samarth, 2013. "Contest functions: Theoretical foundations and issues in estimation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 211-222.
    4. Florian Baumann & Tim Friehe, 2012. "Emotions in litigation contests," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 195-215, September.
    5. Sakshi Gupta & Ram Singh, 2018. "On Existence and Properties of Pure-strategy Equilibria under Contests," Working Papers id:12840, eSocialSciences.
    6. Zhou, J., 2007. "In Litigation : How Far do the “Haves” Come Out Ahead," Other publications TiSEM 84767819-ad3f-431f-a39a-6, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    7. Zhou, J., 2007. "In Litigation : How Far do the “Haves” Come Out Ahead," Discussion Paper 2007-10, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    8. Matthias Kräkel, 2010. "Double-Sided Moral Hazard, Efficiency Wages, and Litigation," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 26(2), pages 337-364.
    9. Luke M. Froeb & Bernhard Ganglmair & Steven Tschantz, 2016. "Adversarial Decision Making: Choosing between Models Constructed by Interested Parties," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(3), pages 527-548.
    10. Christian Ewerhart, 2015. "Contest success functions: the common-pool perspective," ECON - Working Papers 195, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    11. Friehe, Tim, 2010. "Contingent fees and legal expenses insurance: Comparison for varying defendant fault," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 283-290, December.
    12. McBride, Michael & Skaperdas, Stergios & Tsai, Pi-Han, 2018. "Why go to court? Bargaining failure under the shadow of trial with complete information," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 151-168.
    13. Kyung Hwan Baik & In‐Gyu Kim, 2007. "Strategic Decisions On Lawyers’ Compensation In Civil Disputes," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 45(4), pages 854-863, October.
    14. Zhou, J., 2010. "Access to justice : An economic approach," Other publications TiSEM 9d70f451-35c4-4878-92bf-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    15. Gabuthy, Yannick & Peterle, Emmanuel & Tisserand, Jean-Christian, 2021. "Legal Fees, Cost-Shifting Rules and Litigation: Experimental Evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    16. Alex Robson & Stergios Skaperdas, 2008. "Costly enforcement of property rights and the Coase theorem," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 36(1), pages 109-128, July.
    17. Tim Friehe, 2011. "On being asset-constrained in litigation contests," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 277-284, June.
    18. Farmer Amy & Pecorino Paul, 2016. "Litigation with a Variable Cost of Trial," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(2), pages 203-226, July.
    19. Baik, Kyung Hwan & Kim, In-Gyu, 2007. "Contingent fees versus legal expenses insurance," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 351-361, September.
    20. Madhav Aney, 2015. "Inefficiency in the shadow of unobservable reservation payoffs," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 44(4), pages 833-859, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    product rule; litigation costs; rent seeking;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K13 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Tort Law and Product Liability; Forensic Economics
    • K41 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Litigation Process

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:rlecon:v:15:y:2019:i:1:p:19:n:6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.