Torts and Innovation
33 Pages Posted: 8 Nov 2007 Last revised: 21 Oct 2015
Date Written: 2008
Abstract
This Essay exposes and analyzes a hitherto overlooked cost of the current design of tort law: its adverse effect on innovation. Tort liability for negligence, defective products, and medical malpractice is determined by reference to custom. We demonstrate that courts' reliance on custom and conventional technologies as the benchmark of liability chills innovation and distorts its path. Specifically, the recourse to custom taxes innovators and subsidizes replicators of conventional technologies. We explore the causes and consequences of this phenomenon and propose two possible ways to modify tort law in order to make it more welcoming to innovation.
Keywords: law & technology, science & technology, torts, evidence, innovation, negligence, products liability, medical malpractice, custom
JEL Classification: K13, O31
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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