Heaton, Waggoner and Morikawa, ‘Victim Compensation Funds and Tort Litigation Following Incidents of Mass Violence’

Introduction:
… In this Article, we provide novel evidence on the relationship between VCFs and tort litigation, drawing from a nationally representative survey of 1558 adult respondents. Our survey presents a hypothetical scenario where a mass shooting at a concert injures a friend or family member of the respondent. We experimentally vary whether a VCF exists following the shooting, the amount of loss, and the amount of compensation provided, allowing us to examine how these attributes of a situation affect decisions regarding whether to pursue litigation, and whom to sue. We also collected a substantial amount of qualitative information from our survey respondents, which permits us to better gauge the reasons why some respondents choose not to sue, and more clearly understand how VCFs shape attitudes towards tort recovery … (more)

Paul Heaton, Ivan Waggoner, and Jamie Morikawa, ‘Victim Compensation Funds and Tort Litigation Following Incidents of Mass Violence’. 63 Buffalo Law Review 1263 (December 2015).

First posted 2016-01-12 12:44:14

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