The paper develops a rent-seeking theory of the common law. The general finding is that the law's form depends on the comparative advantage each group has in production versus appropriation generally, and appropriation via litigation in particular. The model generates new interpretations of...

In lawsuits, relative success depends upon two main factors: the true degree of fault, and the efforts invested on each side. A proposed Litigation Success Function displays this dependence while satisfying other essential properties. Under two different protocols, Nash-Cournot and Stackelberg,...