The Experts below are selected from a list of 2031 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Timothy D. Lytton - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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framing clergy sexual abuse as an institutional failure how Tort Litigation influences media coverage
William Mitchell law review, 2010Co-Authors: Timothy D. LyttonAbstract:Tort Litigation against the Catholic Church is largely responsible for the widespread understanding of clergy sexual abuse as an institutional failure on the part of Church officials. This essay focuses on three features of Tort Litigation that explain why it exerts such a powerful influence on the framing of clergy sexual abuse. The article concludes with a brief discussion of two implications of the analysis, one for the current controversy over Tort reform and the other for our understanding of child sexual abuse in institutional settings.
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using Tort Litigation to enhance regulatory policy making evaluating climate change Litigation in light of lessons from gun industry and clergy sexual abuse lawsuits
Texas Law Review, 2008Co-Authors: Timothy D. LyttonAbstract:Like any policy tool, Litigation has strengths and weaknesses, and it performs better in some contexts than in others. This article offers a theoretical framework for evaluating the influence of Tort Litigation on regulatory policy making. The framework has three parts. First, using two examples - gun-industry and clergy-sexual-abuse Litigation - the article highlights six distinct ways in which Litigation influences policy making: (1) framing issues in terms of institutional failure and the need for institutional reform, (2) generating policy-relevant information, (3) placing issues on the agendas of policy-making institutions, (4) filling gaps in statutory or administrative regulatory schemes, (5) encouraging self-regulation, and (6) allowing for diverse regulatory approaches in different jurisdictions. Second, the article suggests empirical measures for assessing the extent to which Litigation influences policy making in these six ways. Third, the article compares the relative success of gun-industry and clergy-sexual-abuse Litigation to identify conditions that favor the use of Litigation as a policy tool. This framework can be applied more generally to other examples of regulation through Litigation. In this article, I use it to suggest how we might evaluate lawsuits against producers of greenhouse-gas emissions as a means of addressing climate change. Proponents of climate-change Litigation assert that it enhances policy making in all of the ways suggested above. They claim that it frames the issue of climate change in ways that favor policy reforms, generates policy-relevant information, places the issue on the agendas of policy-making institutions, fills a regulatory gap created by federal resistance to addressing the issue, encourages voluntary self-regulation by industry, and allows for diverse regulatory approaches in different regions. Critics argue that climate-change Litigation is doctrinally unsound, costly, unlikely to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, and may even be counterproductive. The framework presented in this article offers tools with which to advance this debate. The framework suggests how to define and measure success and how to explain the Litigation's degree of success or failure by reference to the larger context in which it is situated. The framework offers guidance for evaluating both the achievements and shortcomings of climate-change Litigation so far, as well as its future prospects.
Linda S. Mullenix - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Prometheus Unbound: The BP Gulf Coast Claims Facility as a Means for Resolving Mass Tort Litigation -- A Fund Too Far
Louisiana Law Review, 2011Co-Authors: Linda S. MullenixAbstract:In 2001, in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center, Congress enacted legislation to create the World Trade Center Victims’ Compensation Fund. In ensuing years, this fund approach was widely heralded as a fair, expeditious means for resolving mass Tort claims. However, a number of scholars subsequently have raised serious challenges with regard to the legitimacy of the WTC Fund. With the recent creation of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and BP Gulf Oil spill, the various criticisms of the WTC Fund have even more powerful resonance. If the WTC Fund represented a movement towards the embrace of fund-mechanisms for resolving mass Tort claims, then the Gulf Coast Claims Facility not only has expanded on this model, but advanced the model in an even more radical, less lawful direction. In this view, it is difficult to discern any basis for legitimacy for the Gulf Coast Claims Facility. For those concerned with the rule of law, equity, and fundamental fairness, the Gulf Coast Claims Facility ought to be a cause for concern. As this article suggests, the arc of special master and GCCF administrator Ken Feinberg’s career neatly demonstrates the evolution of at least three different fund models, progressing from arguably the most legitimate to the arguably the least legitimate (and most lawless). This evolution illustrates a seamless progression from (1) a judicially-approved and managed class action fund to (2) a Congressionally-mandated and supervised fund, to (3) a defendant-created and directed fund. In the haste to embrace the fund approach to mass claim resolution, little attention has focused on how these “funds” have evolved from entities governed by the rule of law to a model essentially unconstrained by law. This paper compares several dimensions of the World Trade Center Victims’ Compensation Fund with the Gulf Coast Claims Facility. By focusing on various aspects of fund creation and implementation, the purpose is to draw attention to the ways in which the Gulf Coast Claims Facility is unlike the WTC Fund. After this lengthy exploration of these two funds, the article concludes with a discussion of the concept of a “fund approach” to the resolution of mass Tort Litigation, and raises concerns about this model. This final assessment considers the Gulf Coast Claims Facility in the context of other fund resolutions of mass claims, returning to the theme that the Gulf Coast Claims Facility represents a radical and troubling departure from other fund resolutions of mass claims, about which rule-of-law advocates ought to be concerned.
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Development in the Procedural Means for Resolution of Mass Tort Litigation in the United States
2004Co-Authors: Linda S. MullenixAbstract:Any understanding of the American judicial system’s views about mass Tort Litigation must appreciate that the judicial system’s attitudes have changed over time. The receptivity of American courts to innovative procedures, as well as the expansion of evidentiary and substantive Tort law, has varied over the past twenty five years. In addition, any appreciation of the problems of mass Tort Litigation must take into account the structure of the American legal system, which includes independent federal and state court systems. Mass Tort Litigation in the United States has been additionally complicated by the intersection of the dual-court system of federal and state courts, with overlapping and concurrent jurisdiction.This paper is divided into three parts. Part I sets forth a general discussion of the time-frame in which mass Tort Litigation developed in the United States and the ways in which the American legal system has adjusted to this new Litigation phenomenon. The second section canvasses the variety of procedural means for possibly resolving mass Tort Litigation. This discussion is intertwined with the temporal framework suggested in Part I. The past portion of the paper contains some concluding remarks concerning the development of procedural means for resolving mass Tort Litigation in the United States, as these procedural means have evolved over three decades. These remarks also reflect on the possible consequences of the World Trade Center Victims’ Compensation fund for resolution of mass Tort claims in the future.
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The September 11th Victims' Compensation Fund: Fund Approaches to Resolving Mass Tort Litigation
2002Co-Authors: Linda S. Mullenix, Kristen B. StewartAbstract:The legal landscape surrounding the World Trade Center events merits attention because through the Victim Compensation Fund the United States government quickly offered victims an alternative means for remediation. This approach, rather than through the Tort Litigation system, is known as a fund approach.The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 constitute the largest and most catastrophic mass Tort in history. With the exception of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the World Trade Center events are unique in the American experience and fit uncomfortably within models of mass Tort Litigation. However, despite arguments to the contrary, the terrorist attacks do embody certain characteristics of mass Torts.Leo Boyle, President of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, has been quoted as saying, “[w]hat happened on September 11th was a mass murder, not a mass Tort.” Despite this rhetorical hyperbole, the events of September 11, 2001 embody characteristics typical of both mass accidents as well as true dispersed mass Tort Litigation.Commentators distinguish between “mass-accident” cases and “mass Tort” Litigation. “Most so-called mass-accident or mass-disaster cases involve situations in which a number of persons are simultaneously harmed by a single act of the defendant.” Typical examples of mass-accident cases are airplane crashes, explosions, catastrophic fires, and oils spills. Dispersed mass Tort Litigation, in contrast, is “characterized by multiple occurrences of various related harms over time.” The events that occurred on September 11, 2001 encompass certain characteristics typical of mass accident cases, such as a single site, single event disaster; a large number of claimants; little geographical dispersion of claimants; and combined claims for personal injury, wrongful death, and property damage. However, the events of September 11, 2001 also reflect classic mass Tort Litigation. Thus, the events at the World Trade Center are also characterized by “numerous victims seeking damages from the same defendants; claims arising from similar events or series of events; high costs attending individual Litigation; and injuries being widely dispersed over space, time, and jurisdictions.” Other characteristics of mass Tort Litigation include an indeterminate class of claimants, the possibility of future claimants, and indeterminate defendants. Mass Torts “vary from single disasters with many victims, to prolonged exposure to or use of hazardous products or materials.” There can be little doubt that the events of September 11, 2001 constituted a mass disaster. Whether those events are viewed as a mass accident or true dispersed mass Tort has implications only if claims arising from these events are pursued through Litigation. The different analytical models would have consequences in the Litigation arena.Although there has been increasing public dissatisfaction with the Victim Compensation Fund with each passing month, the Fund approach is not itself novel. Indeed, as will be explained, the Fund incorporates many characteristics of other fund approaches enacted by Congress in the past.Two points are signally important. First, fund solutions are not new. There are many examples of fund approaches to mass Tort Litigation. Second, although the fund approaches share common characteristics, each is unique based on its facts, features, and implementation.The Victim Compensation Fund will continue to be the source of enduring controversy. Arguments surrounding the Fund, however, deserve some contextual perspective. The Fund is not as novel an approach as its critics would suggest. The Victim Compensation Fund is one of several governmentally enacted fund solutions that Congress has enacted in the past four decades.The Victim Compensation Fund shares many common attributes with these other funds. It was enacted to help preserve an industry deemed vital to national interests and the national economy. It provides for an election of remedies to the exclusion of other remedies. It offers fixed compensation values based on established demographic charts, grids, or statistics. It limits defenses and defendants' liability. Initially, it capped awards. It limits exemplary damages. It involves a claims processing mechanism with provisions for hearings and reviews.All these characteristics are common to other fund approaches that Congress has enacted in the past. Rather then being novel, the Victim Compensation Fund has many overlapping or common features with these funds.Will the Victim Compensation Fund be a model for future mass Tort resolution? Each of these funds share common characteristics, but each is unique in its own features. This is also true for the Victim Compensation Fund. It is sui generis, created to respond to specific events. But as a generic fund-approach, it aligns with these other fund solutions to provide a possible model for resolving mass disaster claims.
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Resolving Aggregate Mass Tort Litigation: The New Private Dispute Resolution Paradigm
Valparaiso University law review, 1999Co-Authors: Linda S. MullenixAbstract:In one of the most famous law review articles ever written, The Role of the Judge in Public Law Litigation, Professor Abram Chayes in 1976 described a paradigm shift away from bipolar traditional Litigation to a new model of public law Litigation. More than twenty years later, at the end of the twentieth century, Professor Chayes's public law paradigm no longer accurately captures the terrain of complex disputes nor reflects the methods of private aggregate dispute resolution. In American jurisprudence, the end of the twentieth century has been the great era of aggregate private dispute resolution, a paradigm that shares some attributes of the public law model. However, the public law model differs in significant respects. Aggregate private dispute resolution has stretched the boundaries of the judicial function, arrogating to private parties and an array of judicial surrogates vast powers for resolving aggregate claims. This aggregative private dispute resolution paradigm resembles nothing so much as private legislation with wide-reaching effects, carrying the imprimatur of judicial oversight and approval, but frequently accompanied by troubling questions about fairness, adequate representation, and the subtle merger of legislative, administrative, and judicial functions.This article first canvasses Professor Chayes's articulation of the public law model, the context in which Professor Chayes generated his thesis, and the late twentieth-century expansion of the public law model to encompass mass Tort Litigation. The article then explains why the public law model is an inapt explanatory paradigm for mass Tort Litigation.The discussion then focuses on four dimensions of the late twentieth-century mass Tort and other aggregate Litigation that implicate special concerns about these cases and that suggest that the paradigm is closer to private legislation without meaningful representation. These include issues relating to solicitation, adequate representation, and the role of objectors and intervenors. This discussion also briefly canvasses problems of copy-cat Litigation, forum-shopping, attorneys' fees, and other matters.The article concludes with broad observations on the need for a new descriptive model to capture the contemporary mass Tort Litigation paradigm.Obviously, we are now quite some distance from Professor Chayes's description of the public interest law paradigm. Mid-way through his analysis, Professor Chayes pauses to offer a “morphology of the public law Litigation,” a model consisting of eight characteristics. The challenge for the contemporary commentator, then, is to formulate a “morphology” of the complex Litigation that is now prevalent throughout the federal and state court systems.Contemporary mass Tort Litigation needs another Professor Chayes to weave together all these strands. After setting forth his morphology of the public interest law Litigation, Professor Chayes concluded: “In fact, one might say that, from the perspective of the traditional model, the proceeding is recognizable as a lawsuit only because it takes place in a courtroom before an official called a judge.” That insight applies with equal force to contemporary aggregate Tort Litigation. But we need a theoretician with greater analytical power and a more descriptive vocabulary than me to accurately capture the new mass Tort paradigm.
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Practical Wisdom and Third-Generation Mass Tort Litigation
1998Co-Authors: Linda S. MullenixAbstract:The debate over mass Tort Litigation has become especially shrill in recent years, as members of the academic community have attacked alleged ethical improprieties, judicial overreaching, and worse. The authors of these Essays, however, present an altogether different and even optimistic view of mass Tort Litigation at the end of the twentieth century. These practitioners in the field tell us that mass Tort Litigation can be resolved ― however imperfectly ― by various means. While the academicians contemplating mass Tort Litigation have labored diligently to intellectualize it ― constructing paradigms grounded in public interest law, social choice theory, communitarianism, and law-and-economics ― the practitioners have been working just as diligently to find real-world solutions to compensate mass Tort victims in appropriate circumstances. In addition, while the academic community heaps scorn and criticism on mass Tort settlements, lawyers and judges quietly continue to develop various means to resolve mass Tort claims. Thus, in contrast to the unabated pessimism from the academic community, these Essays convey much good news from workers in the field. These Essays also embody a good deal of common sense and practical wisdom. These Essays tell us that the lawyers and judges who work on mass Tort cases acutely perceive the complex problems embedded in mass Tort Litigation ― the difficult issues involved in globally resolving thousands of similar claims grounded in highly individualized personal injuries. These Essays tell us that the practitioners also are acutely aware of the constitutional, statutory, and doctrinal limits on their ability to resolve mass Tort claims in the aggregate. These Essays tell us that the practitioners understand the weaknesses, imperfections, and failures in their efforts. And, finally, these Essays tell us that the lawyers and judges who work on mass Tort Litigation are not ethical dullards. It is worth noting how much mass Tort Litigation has developed in the last quarter century. Twenty-five years ago, the legal lexicon did not include the term “mass Tort Litigation.” No one knew what a mass Tort case was. Not only did we not have a label for these massive cases, but we also did not have the concept. In 1966 the rulemakers amending the class action rule knew about mass accident cases ― the airplane crash, for example ― but they did not and could not envision contemporary mass Tort Litigation. Hence, the rulemakers wrote their now-famous Advisory Committee Note, eschewing class certification of mass accident cases. This singular lack of vision subsequently enabled their Note to take on a life of its own, fulfilling the law of unintended consequences in the realm of mass Tort Litigation. It is striking, then, to realize that twenty-five years later we have an entire legal practice and academic field devoted solely to mass Tort Litigation. Attorneys now identify themselves as mass Tort lawyers and mass Tort Litigation is taught in law schools. Twenty-five years ago there were no published works on mass Tort Litigation. Today there is entire literature ― a treatise and casebook, trade books, empirical studies, symposia, and hundreds of articles ― on mass Tort Litigation. As recently as a decade ago, business and legal reporters did not use the term “mass Tort Litigation.” Now “mass Tort Litigation” has passed into the general vocabulary and is routinely discussed in the media. Indeed, we have an entire vocabulary derived from mass Tort Litigation. We speak of mature and immature mass Torts; future claimants; indeterminate plaintiffs and defendants; punitive damages overkill; limited generosity classes; Litigation and settlement classes; and global peace. Mass Tort Litigation has passed into the public consciousness. As mass Tort Litigation has emerged, developed, and matured, so too has the sophistication of the practicing bar and its academic critics. These Essays collectively suggest that after a quarter century, we are entering an era of third-generation mass Tort Litigation. The seminal mass Tort cases ― Agent Orange, asbestos, and the Dalkon Shield ― ave way to a second generation of mass Torts: Bendectin, DES, defective heart valves, tainted blood products, and repetitive stress injuries. This second wave seamlessly segued into the current third-generation mass Torts: those gargantuan cases emerging fully blown onto the Litigation landscape ― breast implant, tobacco, and human rights Litigation.
Allan Kanner - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Experts in Natural Resource Damages and Toxic Tort Litigation
Journal of Environmental Protection, 2016Co-Authors: Allan KannerAbstract:Expert testimony plays a critical role in environmental and toxic Tort Litigation [1]. While most Litigation settles, the work of an expert should, from the outset, be prepared with trial in mind. First and foremost, an expert, using the appropriate expertise, must be able to resolve questions that will assist the trier of fact in making determinations necessary under the law applicable to the case. In addition, an expert must demonstrate a solid scientific foundation in all of his or her opinions. Once armed with the opinions reached in the case, the forensic expert should work with the trial team to simplify proof, clarify the presentation and integrate it with other trial proof and themes [2]. This effort should include the realistic identification of any perceived or real shortcomings regarding the information available, the approach taken by or conclusions reached by the expert. Ongoing communication between the trial team and the expert throughout the discovery and pre-trial Litigation is essential.
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Equity in Toxic Tort Litigation: Unjust Enrichment and the Poor
Law Policy, 2004Co-Authors: Allan KannerAbstract:This paper proposes to explore the current and prospective role of equitable theories and remedies in toxic Tort Litigation. The argument is for an unjust enrichment remedy in certain property pollution cases. The idea is to remove the monetary incentive for polluting economically depressed areas. Two specific areas of investigation come immediately to mind. First, courts have already embraced equitable remedies to address pollution damages. Under Ayers and its progeny, many states have allowed the equitable remedy medical monitoring. What is important to understand is how legal relief for increased risk claims would have been inadequate and also the propriety of finding an equitable approach. Second, moving from personal injury to real property damage claims, we see a similar opportunity for use of equitable relief under an unjust enrichment theory. Currently, there is much debate about the propriety of restoration damages as opposed to fair market value (FMV) damages for the landowners whose property is damaged by the pollution of another. Each approach has various strengths and weaknesses. A better approach might be to use unjust enrichment on a law and economics basis as a remedy to force polluters to internalize the cost of pollution. For instance, take a polluter who pollutes the neighboring environs in lieu of paying one million dollars in disposal and storage costs. Assume the neighboring properties are only worth three hundred thousand dollars on a FMV approach. Assume further that restoration costs are ten million dollars, but that the relevant government agency would accept a natural attenuation clean-up approach. How should the remedy be set, and should one consider allowing a de facto pollution easement?
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Toxic Tort Litigation in a Regulatory World
2002Co-Authors: Allan KannerAbstract:Times change and problems change, and the question for us is to define the respective roles of public and private law in dealing with our environmental problems. Private law, and especially the law of Torts, has developed to meet the relatively novel brute facts and challenges of the modern petrochemical age. As we moved from a world filled with sticks and stones to one with processed hydrocarbons and enhanced radiation, our responsibilities to our neighbors, workers and trading partners likewise shifted. These developments tracked changes seen and documented in private law and Torts at analogous historic moments when the law has moved, albeit slowly, to meet new challenges, such as the advent of industrialization, the automobile, franchising, and mass marketing. That Tort law develops in incremental ways in response to a changing world is not news. Nor is it much debated that, under appropriate circumstances, such developments, including those involving environmental and toxic Torts, have been consistent with the common law tradition. Nor is it disputed that Tort law works.What is significant for our purposes is that what has animated these changes in Tort law, and toxic Tort law especially, is both different from what drives public law regulation of the environment, and instructive as to the importance of a continuing role for toxic Tort Litigation in a world increasingly dominated by public law. Indeed, it may well be that the processes and value of private law are superior in certain respects to public law as it relates to environmental regulations. Specifically, the Tort Litigation process embodies certain ideals and methods that we associate with better decisions of a certain type than the ideals and instrumentalities of the regulatory process would allow.The types of decision best left to Tort certainly concern the one-on-one relations of everyday living. For example, a landowner should be allowed to sue an oil and gas operator for damages done to his or her property. In some instances, mass Tort class actions may also be appropriate, such as where the polluted site sits under a discrete neighborhood. Subject always to the requirement of fairness and efficiency, the same result may be true when someone sells a dangerous substance to numerous public schools.These examples, and others discussed below, in each case produce a result that seems satisfactorily linked to the strengths of the Tort process. Of course, an examination of the connection between a process, such as the Tort system, and the legitimacy of its results is by no means novel. Much can and has been said about the relative merits of the civil justice process and public law administration in resolving various types of problems. Whether certain modes of mass Tort adjudication, and extant case management problems, may undermine this superiority of Tort is hotly debated and must be considered carefully. What we find is that much of this debate, about the forms and limits of Tort, is being ignored in decisions about implied preemption and requested stays of civil law suits in favor of administrative forums. More important, few legislators or regulators take seriously enough the option of doing nothing or less in response to a problem that can be dealt with satisfactorily at common law. These shortcomings stem often from a lack of understanding about Tort.
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Future Trends in Toxic Tort Litigation
1991Co-Authors: Allan KannerAbstract:Tort law is, in part, a creature of its time and place. Understanding these changing circumstances enables us to better anticipate future legal developments. Two important developments are currently shaping the character and future of toxic Tort Litigation. First, common law courts are developing a jurisprudence to deal with the unique features of toxic Tort Litigation. Second, recently enacted Superfund legislation" has altered the context within which many toxic Tort suits occur and toxic Tort law develops. It is this latter aspect which this article addresses.
Susette M. Talarico - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Punitive Damages and the Processing of Tort Claims
Emory Economics, 2005Co-Authors: Thomas A. Eaton, David B. Mustard, Susette M. TalaricoAbstract:Punitive damages are one of the most controversial aspects of Tort Litigation and have been the subject of various theoretical, empirical, and experimental studies. One criticism of punitive damages refers to the effect that they have on civil Litigation processes. In particular, Polinsky (1997) argues that the uncertainty and unpredictability that punitive damage claims inject into a case may increase both the rate and amount of settlements, thus implying that punitive damages carry systemic consequences for the general processing of Tort claims. This paper represents the first, empirical examination of this implication. With one of the largest and most comprehensive data sets of Tort Litigation (over 25,000 cases filed from 1994 through 1997 in several counties in Georgia), we examine the effect of the decision to seek punitive damages on several major decision points in the Tort Litigation process in a series of logit regression models. With extensive control variables for type of case, the presence or absence of caps on damages, and other potentially important variables, we find that seeking punitive damages has no statistically significant effect on most phases of the Tort Litigation process.
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The Effects of Seeking Punitive Damages on the Processing of Tort Claims
The Journal of Legal Studies, 2005Co-Authors: Thomas A. Eaton, David B. Mustard, Susette M. TalaricoAbstract:Abstract Punitive damages are a controversial aspect of Tort Litigation and have been the subjct of numerous theoretical, empirical, and experimental studies. Critics have argued that the uncertainty and unpredictability that punitive damages claims inject into a case may increase the rate and amount of settlements and carry systemic consequences for the general processing of Tort claims. This paper represents the first empirical examination of this hypothesis. With one of the most comprehensive data sets of Tort Litigation, we analyze cases that are likely to have caps on punitive damages awards and cases that are likely to be uncapped. We examine the effect of the decision to seek punitive damages on several major decision points in the Tort Litigation process in a series of logit regression models. With extensive control variables, we find that seeking punitive damages has no statistically significant effect on most phases of the Tort Litigation process.
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Another Brick in the Wall: An Empirical Look at Georgia Tort Litigation in the 1990s
2000Co-Authors: Thomas A. Eaton, Susette M. Talarico, Richard E. DunnAbstract:It has been four years since we prepared our first profile of Tort Litigation in Georgia.It is against this backdrop that we undertook to update and expand upon our original research. We have updated our study by collecting data from Tort cases filed in the superior courts of Bibb, Gwinnett, Irwin, and Oconee counties between 1994 and 1997. Thus, for these four counties we now have data regarding the filing and disposition of Tort cases for an eight-year period. We also have collected data from Tort cases filed in Cobb and Fulton County superior courts between 1994 and 1997. Finally, we have collected data from state court Tort filings in Cobb, Fulton, and Gwinnett counties. This is the first time a study has included state court filings.
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A Profile of Tort Litigation in Georgia and Reflections on Tort Reform
1996Co-Authors: Thomas A. Eaton, Susette M. TalaricoAbstract:Fact-based studies of Tort Litigation in Georgia are almost nonexistent. Georgia is one of many states that does not provide the NCSC with any information regarding Tort Litigation patterns. Georgia does not provide such information because it is not compiled. It is not compiled because these data are not systematically maintained by local courts and reported to the Administrative Office of the Courts. Because the data are not routinely collected and reported, it is impossible to answer such elementary questions as: How many Tort cases are filed in Georgia courts? What types of claims are brought? How many go to trial? How often do plaintiffs prevail? What is the typical damage award when the plaintiff does prevail? These questions, empirical in nature, are fundamental to the Tort reform debate.Our study begins to provide some of the information needed to construct a profile of Tort Litigation in Georgia. We examined the official court records of over 43,000 civil cases filed in four Georgia counties between 1990 and 1993. We then compiled detailed information from all of the more than 2,100 personal injury cases within that group. The data are presented in the tables included in the Appendix.
Thomas A. Eaton - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Of Frivolous Litigation and Runaway Juries: A View from the Bench
2007Co-Authors: Thomas A. EatonAbstract:The political case for Tort reform is based in large measure on the perception that there are too many frivolous law suits and too many excessive jury awards. While there is considerable empirical evidence casting doubt on both these propositions, they remain the linchpins of the Tort reform movement. Scholars, lobbyists, and legislators all have had a voice in the Tort reform debates. The viewpoints of trial judges, however, have been largely absent. This is unfortunate because trial judges are the government officials with the closest view of the Tort Litigation system. They are the ones who see Tort Litigation on a day-in, day-out basis and are therefore uniquely qualified to comment on the extent of problems in the system. This study begins to fill this void by reporting on the views of Georgia Superior Court and State Court judges on Tort Litigation in their courts.
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Punitive Damages and the Processing of Tort Claims
Emory Economics, 2005Co-Authors: Thomas A. Eaton, David B. Mustard, Susette M. TalaricoAbstract:Punitive damages are one of the most controversial aspects of Tort Litigation and have been the subject of various theoretical, empirical, and experimental studies. One criticism of punitive damages refers to the effect that they have on civil Litigation processes. In particular, Polinsky (1997) argues that the uncertainty and unpredictability that punitive damage claims inject into a case may increase both the rate and amount of settlements, thus implying that punitive damages carry systemic consequences for the general processing of Tort claims. This paper represents the first, empirical examination of this implication. With one of the largest and most comprehensive data sets of Tort Litigation (over 25,000 cases filed from 1994 through 1997 in several counties in Georgia), we examine the effect of the decision to seek punitive damages on several major decision points in the Tort Litigation process in a series of logit regression models. With extensive control variables for type of case, the presence or absence of caps on damages, and other potentially important variables, we find that seeking punitive damages has no statistically significant effect on most phases of the Tort Litigation process.
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The Effects of Seeking Punitive Damages on the Processing of Tort Claims
The Journal of Legal Studies, 2005Co-Authors: Thomas A. Eaton, David B. Mustard, Susette M. TalaricoAbstract:Abstract Punitive damages are a controversial aspect of Tort Litigation and have been the subjct of numerous theoretical, empirical, and experimental studies. Critics have argued that the uncertainty and unpredictability that punitive damages claims inject into a case may increase the rate and amount of settlements and carry systemic consequences for the general processing of Tort claims. This paper represents the first empirical examination of this hypothesis. With one of the most comprehensive data sets of Tort Litigation, we analyze cases that are likely to have caps on punitive damages awards and cases that are likely to be uncapped. We examine the effect of the decision to seek punitive damages on several major decision points in the Tort Litigation process in a series of logit regression models. With extensive control variables, we find that seeking punitive damages has no statistically significant effect on most phases of the Tort Litigation process.
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Another Brick in the Wall: An Empirical Look at Georgia Tort Litigation in the 1990s
2000Co-Authors: Thomas A. Eaton, Susette M. Talarico, Richard E. DunnAbstract:It has been four years since we prepared our first profile of Tort Litigation in Georgia.It is against this backdrop that we undertook to update and expand upon our original research. We have updated our study by collecting data from Tort cases filed in the superior courts of Bibb, Gwinnett, Irwin, and Oconee counties between 1994 and 1997. Thus, for these four counties we now have data regarding the filing and disposition of Tort cases for an eight-year period. We also have collected data from Tort cases filed in Cobb and Fulton County superior courts between 1994 and 1997. Finally, we have collected data from state court Tort filings in Cobb, Fulton, and Gwinnett counties. This is the first time a study has included state court filings.
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A Profile of Tort Litigation in Georgia and Reflections on Tort Reform
1996Co-Authors: Thomas A. Eaton, Susette M. TalaricoAbstract:Fact-based studies of Tort Litigation in Georgia are almost nonexistent. Georgia is one of many states that does not provide the NCSC with any information regarding Tort Litigation patterns. Georgia does not provide such information because it is not compiled. It is not compiled because these data are not systematically maintained by local courts and reported to the Administrative Office of the Courts. Because the data are not routinely collected and reported, it is impossible to answer such elementary questions as: How many Tort cases are filed in Georgia courts? What types of claims are brought? How many go to trial? How often do plaintiffs prevail? What is the typical damage award when the plaintiff does prevail? These questions, empirical in nature, are fundamental to the Tort reform debate.Our study begins to provide some of the information needed to construct a profile of Tort Litigation in Georgia. We examined the official court records of over 43,000 civil cases filed in four Georgia counties between 1990 and 1993. We then compiled detailed information from all of the more than 2,100 personal injury cases within that group. The data are presented in the tables included in the Appendix.