Private Law Theory

Abstract:
This review essay critically examines Marshall Shapo’s new book, An Injury Constitution. Shapo’s new book provides a counter to simplistic arguments that torts is driving our economy into a death spiral by jackpot justice judgments in which undeserving plaintiffs collect enormous awards given by runaway juries. Drawing upon forty-six years of torts scholarship and teaching, Shapo’s pluralistic theory demonstrates how injury law reflects our culture and our inner life, as well as our aspirations to constrain bullies and the reckless acts that endanger society. In its eleven chapters, this book contends that American injury law has evolved as the functional equivalent of a constitution.

Rustad, Michael L, The Myth of a Value-Free Injury Law: Constitutive Injury Law as a Cultural Battleground (July 16, 2012). Northwestern University Law Review, Forthcoming; Suffolk University Law School Research Paper No. 12-27.

First posted 2012-07-19 10:15:40