ABSTRACT
Prominent scholars argue that tort law redresses only those things that people had before they were wrongfully injured. This standard view holds that torts are just for harms to ‘the house that the potential plaintiff already lives in’, or the ‘work she already does’, or the ‘peace and quiet she has already found’. Torts don’t protect the bigger house or better work or sounder peace she dreams of. This priority of existing losses over future ones reflects the familiar sense – captured by psychology principles like ‘loss aversion’ and ‘prospect theory’ – that it’s worse to have something taken away that was previously yours than it is to be denied that very same thing that you don’t have yet …
Fox, Dov, Redressing Future Losses (August 3, 2019). DePaul Law Review, Forthcoming.
First posted 2019-08-06 06:19:10
Leave a Reply