IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/bejtec/v14y2014i1p25n2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Robustness Case for Proportional Liability

Author

Listed:
  • Stremitzer Alexander

    (UCLA School of Law, 385 Charles E. Young Drive, East, 1242 Law Building, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1476, USA)

  • Tabbach Avraham D.

    (Faculty of Law, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel)

Abstract

In important areas like medical malpractice and environmental torts, injurers are potentially insolvent and courts may make errors in determining liability (e.g. due to hindsight bias). We show that proportional liability, which holds a negligent injurer liable for harm discounted with the probability that the harm was caused by the injurer’s negligence, is less susceptible to these imperfections and therefore socially preferable to all other liability rules currently contemplated by courts. We also provide a result which might be useful to regulators when calculating minimum capital requirements or minimum mandatory insurance for different industries.

Suggested Citation

  • Stremitzer Alexander & Tabbach Avraham D., 2014. "The Robustness Case for Proportional Liability," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 371-395, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejtec:v:14:y:2014:i:1:p:25:n:2
    DOI: 10.1515/bejte-2012-0013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/bejte-2012-0013
    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/bejte-2012-0013?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. Shmuel Leshem & Geoffrey P. Miller, 2009. "All-or-Nothing versus Proportionate Damages," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(2), pages 345-382, June.
    2. Tabbach Avraham D., 2008. "Causation and Incentives to Choose Levels of Care and Activity Under the Negligence Rule," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 133-152, May.
    3. Stremitzer, Alexander & Tabbach, Avraham, 2009. "Insolvency and Biased Standards - The Case for Proportional Liability," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 289, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    4. Kornhauser, Lewis A & Revesz, Richard L, 1990. "Apportioning Damages among Potentially Insolvent Actors," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(2), pages 617-651, June.
    5. Juan José Ganuza & Fernando Gómez, 2008. "Realistic Standards: Optimal Negligence with Limited Liability," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(2), pages 577-594, June.
    6. Kahan, Marcel, 1989. "Causation and Incentives to Take Care under the Negligence Rule," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(2), pages 427-447, June.
    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. Robert Cooter & Ariel Porat, 2015. "Disgorgement Damages for Accidents," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(2), pages 249-276.
    2. Friehe, Tim & Langlais, Eric, 2017. "Prevention and cleanup of dynamic harm under environmental liability," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 107-120.
    3. Gomez, Fernando & Penalva, Jose, 2015. "Tort reform and the theory of coordinating tort and insurance," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 83-97.

    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. Stremitzer, Alexander & Tabbach, Avraham, 2009. "Insolvency and Biased Standards--The Case for Proportional Liability," Working Papers 75r, Yale University, Department of Economics.
    2. Friehe Tim, 2010. "On Avoidance Activities After Accidents," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 181-195, September.
    3. Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci & Gerrit De Geest, 2005. "Judgment Proofness under Four Different Precaution Technologies," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 161(1), pages 38-56, March.
    4. Dari-Mattiacci, Giuseppe & Langlais, Eric, 2012. "Social Wealth and Optimal Care," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 271-284.
    5. 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.
    6. Donatella Porrini, 2005. "Environmental Policies Choice as an Issue of Informational Efficiency," Chapters, in: Jürgen G. Backhaus (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Law and Economics, Second Edition, chapter 23, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Guiseppe Dari Mattiaci & F. Parisi, 2003. "The Economics of Tort Law: A Précis," Working Papers 03-13, Utrecht School of Economics.
    8. Farmer, Amy & Pecorino, Paul, 2017. "Litigation with judgment proof defendants," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 1-9.
    9. Dari-Mattiacci Giuseppe & Hendriks Eva S., 2013. "Relative Fault and Efficient Negligence: Comparative Negligence Explained," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-40, June.
    10. Schweizer, Urs, 2011. "Vicarious Liability and the Intensity Principle," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 364, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    11. Hylton, Keith N. & Lin, Haizhen, 2013. "Negligence, causation, and incentives for care," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 80-89.
    12. Lando, Henrik & Schweizer, Urs, 2021. "Causation and the incentives of multiple injurers," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    13. Julien Jacob & Eve-Angéline Lambert & Mathieu Lefebvre & Sarah Driessche, 2023. "Information disclosure under liability: an experiment on public bads," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 61(1), pages 155-197, July.
    14. Friehe, Tim & Langlais, Eric, 2017. "Prevention and cleanup of dynamic harm under environmental liability," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 107-120.
    15. Daniel Carvell & Janet Currie & W. Bentley MacLeod, 2012. "Accidental death and the rule of joint and several liability," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 43(1), pages 51-77, March.
    16. Tim Friehe, 2014. "Tacit collusion and liability rules," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 453-469, December.
    17. Singh, Ram, 2007. "‘Causation-consistent’ liability, economic efficiency and the law of torts," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 179-203.
    18. Allan M. Feldman & Ram Singh, 2009. "Comparative Vigilance," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 11(1), pages 134-161.
    19. Gérard Mondello, 2013. "Ambiguous Beliefs on Damages and Civil Liability Theories"," Post-Print halshs-00929948, HAL.
    20. Keith Hylton & Haizhen Lin & Hyo-Youn Chu, 2015. "Negligence and two-sided causation," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 393-411, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    compliance; uncertain causation; court error; judgment-proof problem; proportional liability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K13 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Tort Law and Product Liability; Forensic Economics

    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:bejtec:v:14:y:2014:i:1:p:25:n:2. 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.degruyterbrill.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.