Priest and Klein’s 1984 article, “The Selection of Disputes for Litigation,” famously hypothesized a “tendency toward 50 percent plaintiff victories” among litigated cases. Despite the article’s enduring influence, its results have never been formally proved, and doubts remain about...

Punitive damages deter and punish. Using a social welfare function that incorporates both economic efficiency and a desire for retribution, this paper explores the effects of punitive damages in situations of reckless disregard that might be viewed as outrageous. If the defendant was making a...

This paper develops a typology of different behaviors that might be viewed as outrageous by a jury and subjected to punitive damages. The paper derives the level of punitive damages for achieving economic efficiency in four different situations ?malice and three settings where a jury might find...

In the past decade a comparative law and economics literature has emerged that is largely organized around an effort to explain differences in country economic performance in terms of differences between common law and civil code systems. Assumptions about differences between common law and...

English law has clarified the scope of legal advice privilege ('attorney-client privilege') and confirmed that only lawyers and not, for example, accountants, can give such privileged legal advice and support. There are sound reasons for sustaining this clear rule. First, confining this...

This article serves to introduce an aspect of current research related to the review of the Seychelles Civil Code and the important question of the role of trusts. The Civil Code is based on the Code Napoléon and has therefore no provision for the trust of English law. The Courts of Seychelles...