Judge and Jury

American Tort Law on Trial

Eric Helland, Alexander Tabarrok

• Publisher: Independent Institute
• Year: 2006
• eBook ISBN: 9781598132441
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Civil Procedure
• Index: Law

With inordinate amounts of money spent in the United States on lawyers and lawsuits and multi-billion-dollar settlements growing each year, the very timely book Judge and Jury asks, "Is the tort system benefiting the public?"

In Judge and Jury, the fear of litigation is shown to reduce innovations, drive physicians and manufacturers out of lawsuit-prone specialties, and increase manufacturing and consumer costs. In the courts, data from thousands of cases all over the country demonstrate that tort system awards are driven by political factors such as judicial elections, jury compositions, and the location of courts themselves. This book assembles the unprecedented findings and insights by authors Eric Helland Alexander Tabarrok, who have pioneered economic and legal research into the injustice and enormous costs created by the politicization of the tort law.

Seeking to reverse the extremely harmful trends in tort law, Judge and Jury assembles innovative alternatives for reforming the tort system and charts a course toward re-establishing fair civil justice for all in the United States.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Race, Poverty, and American Tort Awards
• 3. Runaway Judges? Selection Effects and the Jury
• 4. The Effect of Judicial Elections on Tort Awards
• 5. Two Cheers for Contingent Fees
• 6. Conclusions and Options for Reform
• Notes
• References
• Index
• About the Authors
• Praise for Judge and Jury
• Back Cover