By mandating that numerous plaintiffs litigate their common question claims separately in individual arbitrations rather than jointly in class action arbitrations, the Supreme Court in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion created a potent structural and systemic bias in favor of defendants. The bias...

This chapter presents an overview of the theoretical law and economics literature on the burden of proof within tort law. I begin by clarifying core legal definitions within this topic, demonstrating that the burden of proof actually refers to at least five doctrinal concepts that substantially...

After the upsurge of class actions in North America, since the amendment to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) of 1966, this initially idiosyncratic American sort of litigation has pervaded procedural systems of countries of Civil Law tradition in the following decades. Its reception has...

Some commentators have recently proclaimed the U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act to be dead. In Nevsun Resources, the Canadian Supreme Court took a seemingly bold step in providing access to justice to victims of human rights abuses against corporate entities, presumably to partly fill this void. This...

In this article I first describe the basic principles that parents employ in disciplining their children. The description is based on a survey of parents, the major results of which are that parental sanctions are premised on wrongdoing--not on the mere causation of harm; that parental sanctions...

This paper, using the methods of literature analysis, theoretically inductive analysis, as well as cross-disciplinary approach, analyses the present conditions and problems of the application of ADR in specific areas in China, such as in the protection of consumers' rights and interests, the...

The expansive application of tort law to business enterprise has established courts as regulators of the safety and supply of virtually all mass-produced goods and services, including those such as prescription drugs and medical care, upon which the lives and livelihood of most people depend....

Theories of tort law have focused on the breach and causation components of negligence, saying little if anything about duty. This paper provides a positive economic theory of duty doctrine. The theory that best explains duty doctrines in tort law is the same as the theory that explains strict...

A judge facing exogenous constraints on his pecuniary income has an incentive to reduce his workload to increase his private welfare. In the face of an increase in caseload, this incentive will induce judges to attempt to terminate some cases more rapidly. In class action cases, failing to grant...

The information that is created and disseminated through the litigation process can have social value. When economic agents learn about risks, they can fine-tune their future behaviors to mitigate these risks. Specifically, suppose that an injured plaintiff sues a defendant for damages sustained...