Avec la règle de la responsabilité sans faute, un agent potentiellement insolvable est incité à prendre insuffisammant de précautions dans la pratique d'activités imposant des risques à des tiers. La règle plus courante de la responsabilité pour faute peut pallier ce problème puisqu'elle conditionne la responsabilité légale sur le comportement de prévention de l'agent, observé ex post. Cet article généralise l'analyse de la responsabilité pour faute au cas où la cour n'obtient qu'une information imparfaite sur le comportement de l'agent. En particulier, je montre que le critère juridique de la prépondérance de preuve est compatible avec l'efficacité incitative.
Under the tort law strict liability rule, a potentially judgment proof agent will take suboptimal care in the conduct of risk generating activities, thereby imposing excessive risks on third parties. The more common negligence rule can alleviate this problem by conditioning liability on the agent's actual level of care, observed ex post. This paper extends the analysis of the negligence rule to the case where courts can obtain only imperfect information on the level of care. In particular, I show that the legal practice concerning standards of proof is compatible with incentive efficiency.
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information K13 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Tort Law and Product Liability
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