We extend the economic analysis of negligence and intervening causation to "two-sided causation" scenarios. In the two-sided causation scenario the effectiveness of the injurer's care depends on some intervention, and the risk of harm generated by the injurer's failure to take care depends on...

We present a new model of negligence and causation and examine the influence of the negligence test, in the presence of intervening causation, on the level of care. In this model, the injurer’s decision to take care reduces the likelihood of an accident only in the event that some...

This paper, prepared for the 2009 Monsanto Lecture in Tort Jurisprudence, explains intent standards in tort law on the basis of the incentive effects of tort liability rules. Intent rules serve a regulatory function by internalizing costs optimally. The intent standard for battery internalizes...

Economic analysis of nuisance law can be divided into two branches: the transaction cost model and the externality model. The two models provide a relatively complete positive theory of nuisance law. Under the externality model, nuisance law optimally regulates activity levels. Nuisance law...

This essay critically reviews the theory of biomedical ethics from a law-and-economics perspective. It suggests that the best direction for society is toward greater reliance on property rights and recognized spheres of autonomy, coupled with freedom of contract within specified limits; and that...

This paper derives optimal remedies for patent infringement, examining damages awards and injunctions. The fundamental optimality condition that applies to both awards and injunctions equates the marginal static cost of intellectual property protection with the marginal “dynamic” benefit...

Previous literature on contributory versus comparative negligence has shown that they reach equivalent equilibria. These results, however, depend upon a stylized application of the Hand Formula and an insufficiently coarse model of strategic incentives. Taking this into account, we identify a...

This essay sets out the law and the economic theory of nuisance. Nuisance law serves a regulatory function: it induces actors to choose the socially preferred level of an activity by imposing liability when the externalized costs of the activity are substantially greater than the externalized...

We extend the economic analysis of negligence and intervening causation to “two-sided causation” scenarios. In the two-sided causation scenario the effectiveness of the injurer's care depends on some intervention, and the risk of harm generated by the injurer's failure to take care depends...

Class action litigation has generated a series of recent Supreme Court decisions imposing greater federal court supervision over the prosecution of collective injury claims. This group of cases raises the question whether class action waivers should be permitted on policy grounds. I examine the...