A Survey and Some Commentary on Federal Tort Reform
41 Pages Posted: 23 Mar 2006
Abstract
The Essay was written for the Fourth Remedies Discussion Forum held in November 2005 at the Louis D. Brandies School of Law at the University of Louisville. The papers from the Forum will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Akron Law Review.
My contribution to the Forum focuses on tort reform at the federal level in its many forms. In Part I, I survey the potential types of federal tort reform. While many of these types of reform measures could be adopted on the state level as well as nationally, some important ones could not. It is on those uniquely federal measures that I focus much of my attention. This section also considers the interrelationships of the branches of government as well as the political and legal advantages and disadvantages of various types of reform. In Part II, I discuss some of the legislation adopted in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. That legislation provides a useful summary of what can be done at the federal level by combining the various avenues for reform available to the national government. It also gives one a good indication of the extent, and simultaneously, the subtlety of federal power in the American constitutional order.
Keywords: Tort Reform, Federalism
JEL Classification: K13, K41
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation