During the past two decades, the use of DNA tests has revolutionized court proceedings in criminal and paternity cases. On the horizon is a new challenge for judges--whether to admit or compel genetic tests to confirm or predict genetic diseases and conditions in many more judicial contexts, e.g., decisions regarding culpability, sentencing, liability, causation, and damages. This Policy Forum ...

Contract interpretation is an understudied topic in the economic analysis of contract law. This paper combines simple formal analysis of the tradeoffs involved in interpretation with applications to the principal doctrines of contract interpretation, including the “four corners” rule, mutual mistake, contra proferentum, and what I call the (informal but very important) rule of “extrinsic nonevi...

For the last decade or two general practice, indeed medicine in general, has been manufacturing ‘tools’ as if a 21st century industrial revolution was under way. Am I alone in my distaste and negative reactions, feeling that in most cases the word ‘tool’ is now used in a most ignorant and inappropriate way? Most patients know exactly what tools are, and use them to good effect in the real world...