IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uct/uconnp/2004-24.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Tort for Risk and Endogenous Bankruptcy

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas J. Miceli

    (University of Connecticut)

  • Kathleen Segerson

    (University of Connecticut)

Abstract

Conventional tort law bars victims of exposure to a toxic substance from filing suit until they actually develop symptoms of illness. Practically speaking, this rule often bars recovery due to bankruptcy and causal uncertainty. One solution is to allow victims to file at exposure for expected damages (a tort for risk). The trade-off is that such a rule may trigger a race to file among exposure victims, thereby itself inducing bankruptcy. This paper characterizes the conditions under which such a race will occur in equilibrium and examines the implications for social welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas J. Miceli & Kathleen Segerson, 2004. "A Tort for Risk and Endogenous Bankruptcy," Working papers 2004-24, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:uct:uconnp:2004-24
    Note: We acknowledge the very useful comments of David Martimort and an anonymous referee.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://media.economics.uconn.edu/working/2004-24.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fischer, Michael J, 1996. "Union Carbide's Bhopal Incident: A Retrospective," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 12(2-3), pages 257-269, May.
    2. Douglas W. Diamond & Philip H. Dybvig, 2000. "Bank runs, deposit insurance, and liquidity," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 24(Win), pages 14-23.
    3. Miceli, Thomas J. & Segerson, Kathleen, 2003. "A note on optimal care by wealth-constrained injurers," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 273-284, September.
    4. Kathryn E. Spier, 2002. "Settlement with Multiple Plaintiffs: The Role of Insolvency," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(2), pages 295-323, October.
    5. Shavell, S., 1986. "The judgment proof problem," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 45-58, June.
    6. Rose-Ackerman, Susan, 1989. "Dikes, Dams, and Vicious Hogs: Entitlement and Efficiency in Tort Law," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(1), pages 25-50, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Thomas J. Miceli & Kathleen Segerson, 2005. "Do Exposure Suits Produce a "Race to File"? An Economic Analysis of a Tort for Risk," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(3), pages 613-627, Autumn.

    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. Thomas J. Miceli & Kathleen Segerson, 2005. "Do Exposure Suits Produce a "Race to File"? An Economic Analysis of a Tort for Risk," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(3), pages 613-627, Autumn.
    2. Farmer, Amy & Pecorino, Paul, 2017. "Litigation with judgment proof defendants," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 1-9.
    3. Gérard Mondello, 2012. "Strict Liability, Capped Strict Liability, and Care Effort under Asymmetric Information," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 168(2), pages 232-251, June.
    4. Gérard Mondello, 2010. "Risky Activities and Strict Liability Rules: Delegating Safety," Working Papers 2010.103, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    5. Kim, Chulyoung & Koh, Paul S., 2019. "Minimum Asset and Liability Insurance Requirements on Judgment-Proof Individuals When Harm is Endogenous," Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 60(2), pages 141-161, December.
    6. Tim Friehe, 2008. "On judgment proofness in the case of bilateral harm," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 175-185, October.
    7. Dari-Mattiacci, Giuseppe & De Geest, Gerrit, 2006. "When will judgment proof injurers take too much precaution?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 336-354, September.
    8. Jakob Korbinian Eberl, 2016. "The Collateral Framework of the Eurosystem and Its Fiscal Implications," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 69.
    9. G.G.A. de Geest & G. Dari Mattiacci, 2005. "Soft Regulators, tough judges," Working Papers 05-06, Utrecht School of Economics.
    10. Giuseppe Dari‐Mattiacci & Barbara M. Mangan, 2008. "Disappearing Defendants versus Judgment‐Proof Injurers," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(300), pages 749-765, November.
    11. van 't Veld, Klaas & Hutchinson, Emma, 2009. "Excessive spending by firms to avoid accidents: Is it a concern in practice?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 324-335, December.
    12. Tim Friehe, 2011. "On being asset-constrained in litigation contests," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 277-284, June.
    13. Tim Friehe & Christoph Rössler & Elisabeth Schulte, 2023. "Probing the case for manufacturer liability for harms caused by judgment-proof consumers to others," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 56(3), pages 443-460, December.
    14. Nicolas Lampach & Sandrine Spaeter, 2016. "The Efficiency of (strict) Liability Rules revised in Risk and Ambiguity," Working Papers of BETA 2016-29, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    15. Requate, Till & Friehe, Tim & Sengupta, Aditi, 2023. "Liability and the incentive to improve information about risk when injurers may be judgment-proof," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    16. Tim Friehe, 2007. "A note on judgment proofness and risk aversion," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 109-118, October.
    17. Beatrix Paal & Bruce D. Smith, 2013. "The sub-optimality of the Friedman rule and the optimum quantity of money," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 14(2), pages 911-948, November.
    18. Yeon‐Koo Che & Kathryn E. Spier, 2008. "Strategic judgment proofing," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(4), pages 926-948, December.
    19. König, Philipp J. & Pothier, David, 2018. "Safe but fragile: Information acquisition, sponsor support and shadow bank runs," Discussion Papers 15/2018, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    20. Alberto Giovannini, 1990. "European Monetary Reform: Progress and Prospects," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 21(2), pages 217-292.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental accidents; mass torts; bankruptcy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K13 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Tort Law and Product Liability; Forensic Economics
    • K32 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Energy, Environmental, Health, and Safety Law
    • Q27 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Issues in International Trade

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:uct:uconnp:2004-24. 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: Mark McConnel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deuctus.html .

    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.