Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Academic Blogs -> Legal Theory Blog

Academic

: Legal Theory Blog

Golberg & Zipursky on Polinsky & Shavell on Product Liability

By Lawrence Solum

John C.P. Goldberg and Benjamin C. Zipursky (Harvard Law School and Fordham University - School of Law) have posted The Easy Case for Products Liability Law: A Response to Professors Polinsky and Shavell (Harvard Law Review, Vol. 123, 2010) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

In their article ?The Uneasy Case for Product Liability,? Professors Polinsky and Shavell assert the extraordinary claim that there should be no tort liability - none at all - for injuries caused by widely-sold products. In particular, they claim to have found convincing evidence that the threat of tort liability creates no additional incentives to safety beyond those already provided by regulatory agencies and market forces, and that tort compensation adds little or no benefit to injury victims beyond the compensation already provided by various forms of insurance. In this response, we explain that, even on its own narrow terms, ?Uneasy,? comes nowhere near to demonstrating what it purports to demonstrate. We also identify various ?benefits? provided by tort liability for product-related injuries that Polinsky and Shavell entirely fail to consider. In fact, the case for some form of products liability - whether fault-based or defect-based - is really quite easy.

Highly recommended!

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on March 26, 2010 (boomark / email).