Recent malpractice premium hikes and President Bush’s federal tort reform proposal have focused attention on medical liability costs. One frequent justification for tort reform proposals is the potential impact of liability on defensive medicine. There is however, scant and conflicting evidence on whether malpractice risk alters physician practices. In this paper, I examine whether malpractice ...

Law360, New York (November 17, 2015, 10:53 AM ET) -Nuisance has increasingly become the “tort of choice” for plaintiffs in environmental and toxic tort litigation. In addition to other tort claims at their disposal (e.g., strict liability, negligence, trespass), plaintiffs consistently tack on nuisance claims because of the perception that such claims are subject to less stringent legal standar...

Theory suggests that tort reform could have either of two impacts on accidents. First, reforms could increase accidents as tortfeasors internalize less of the costs of externalities, and thus, have less incentive to reduce the risk of accidents. Second, tort reforms could decrease accidents as lower expected liability costs result in lower prices, enabling consumers to buy more risk-reducing pr...

Over the past century, the allegation that the tort liability system incentivizes legal extortion and is chock-full of fraudulent claims has dominated public discussion and prompted lawmakers to ever-more-creatively curtail individuals' incentives and opportunities to seek redress. Unsatisfied with these conventional efforts, in recent years, at least a dozen corporate defendants have "discover...

1 An employee injured at work in the UK is able to claim not only no-fault social security benefit from the state under the industrial injuries compensation scheme, but also damages from the employer if liability in tort can be established. Use of one system of compensation does not lead to exclusion from the other; there is no ‘employer privilege’ preventing an employee claiming from both work...

54 ■ For The Defense ■ April 2017 ■ Michael Crist is a partner at DLD Lawyers with over 27 years of experience in product liability, toxic tort, and insurance defense litigation. He has been a member of trial teams in multiple states and has served as national coordinating and trial counsel. Mr. Crist has presented seminars and authored articles on a variety of topics and is a member of DRI. Ma...