We evaluate the effect of tort reform on employer-sponsored health insurance premiums by exploiting state-level variation in the timing of reforms. Using a dataset of healthplans representing over 10 million Americans annually between 1998 and 2006, we find that caps on non-economic damages, collateral source reform, and joint and several liability reform reduce premiums by 1 to 2 percent each....

What is contract law “about”? One way of looking at it is to conceive of the subjectmatter of contract law in terms of promises – somewhat like tort law revolves around the concepts of accident or harm. Much like accidents -first-year law students are taught -promises are “out there” in the world, to be classified and distinguished so as to privilege some with legal enforceability. There is a l...

The United States is on the verge of a public health crisis. For decades, all 50 states have required that parents vaccinate their children against various diseases, including polio and measles, as a prerequisite to enrolling them in public schools [1]. While virtually all states have tailored their immunization statutes to exempt those with religious (and sometimes philosophical) objections to...

S | 147 A Relevant Intent Theory of Patents Saurabh Vishnubhakat Postdoctoral Associate, Duke University School of Law Durham, NC This article challenges the axiom of U.S. patent law that direct patent infringement is a strict liability tort. Even among critics of the strict liability conception in certain patent contexts, the consensus view of direct infringement remains that impermissibly pra...

Abstract When drafting the Principles of European Tort Law (PETL), members Group on decided to omit wrongfulness as a specific requirement for civil liability, considering it concept underlying notions interference with legally protected interests and standard conduct. This paper tends demonstrate that this terminological conceptual choice is still valid eighteen years after publication PETL. O...