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Judicial Detection Skill and Contractual Compliance

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  • Kirstein, Roland
  • Schmidtchen, Dieter

Abstract

Mutually beneficial agreements might fail if the parties fear contractual opportunism. Litigation is supposed to be a remedy, but gives scope for another kind of opportunistic behavior which we call litigational opportunism: Even knowing that the opponent has fulfilled his obligations, a party might bring suit. We introduce a new concept, called judicial detection skill, and show that positive judicial detection skill is a prerequisite if the court system is to deter opportunistic suits and simultaneously induce bilateral contractual compliance. The traditional literature on litigation either assumes judges with zero detection skill, or simply neglects that opportunistic suits might be successful. We prove that those models are unable to provide an answer to the question of how to prevent both types of opportunism simultaneously. --

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Saarland University, CSLE - Center for the Study of Law and Economics in its series CSLE Discussion Paper Series with number 97-07.

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Date of creation: 1997
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Handle: RePEc:zbw:csledp:9707

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Keywords: Economic analysis of procedural law; judicial detection skill; litigational opportunism; contractual opportunism;

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  1. Landes, William M, 1971. "An Economic Analysis of the Courts," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(1), pages 61-107, April.
  2. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Macey, Jonathan R, 1994. "Judicial Preferences, Public Choice, and the Rules of Procedure," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(1), pages 627-46, January.
  4. Anderson, Gary M & Shughart, William F, II & Tollison, Robert D, 1989. "On the Incentives of Judges to Enforce Legislative Wealth Transfers," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 215-28, April.
  5. Rasmusen, E., 1993. "Judicial Legitimacy as a Repeated Game," Papers 93-017, Indiana - Center for Econometric Model Research.
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  8. Sanchirico, Chris William, 1997. "The burden of proof in civil litigation: A simple model of mechanism design," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 431-447, September.
  9. Schmidtchen, Dieter & Kirstein, Roland, 1996. "Judicial Detection Skill, Litigational Opportunism, and Contractual Compliance," CSLE Discussion Paper Series 96-04, Saarland University, CSLE - Center for the Study of Law and Economics.
  10. George L. Priest & Benjamin Klein, 1984. "The Selection of Disputes for Litigation," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(1), pages 1-56, January.
  11. Heiner, Ronald Asher & Schmidtchen, Dieter, 1995. "Rational Cooperation In One-Shot Simultaneous Pd-Situations," CSLE Discussion Paper Series 95-03, Saarland University, CSLE - Center for the Study of Law and Economics.
  12. Rosenberg, D. & Shavell, S., 1985. "A model in which suits are brought for their nuisance value," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 3-13, June.
  13. Polinsky, A Mitchell & Shavell, Steven, 1989. "Legal Error, Litigation, and the Incentive to Obey the Law," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 99-108, Spring.
  14. Katz, Avery, 1990. "The effect of frivolous lawsuits on the settlement of litigation," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 3-27, May.
  15. Heiner, Ronald A, 1985. "Origin of Predictable Behavior: Further Modeling and Applications," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 391-96, May.
  16. Bebchuk, Lucian Arye, 1988. "Suing Solely to Extract a Settlement Offer," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(2), pages 437-50, June.
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