Liability (Paperback)

by Peter W. Huber (Author) "IT IS one of the most ubiquitous taxes we pay, now levied on virtually everything we buy, sell, and use..." (more)
Key Phrases: new tort system, new tort jurisprudence, old tort law, New York, Dalkon Shield, New Jersey (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
This controversial book describes the transformation of modern tort law since the 1960s, and shows how the dramatic increase in liability lawsuits has had an adverse effect on safety, health, the cost of insurance, and individual rights.

About the Author

Peter W. Huber, an M.I.T.-trained engineer and a Harvard law graduate, has also taught at M.I.T. and formerly clerked for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. A Manhattan Institute Fellow, he lives in Washington, D.C.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (July 17, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465039197
• ISBN-13: 978-0465039197
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #818,014 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Among Best Anywhere On The Subject, December 18, 1996

By A Customer

Huber appears to be an attorney by education, if not in practice. He has researched the subject well, and has a dry wit in his comparisons that enliven the reading if the reader has any intellectual inclination. The book does not require heavy concentration but is not for a relaxing fireside session. Covering mainly recent decades where liberal legalists Huber terms "The Founders" significantly altered the face of American law in the area of liability, you will understand why he uses the term "revolution" when you finish this book. The anecdotes and historical cases are fascinating. This is absolutely de rigeur reading for anyone expecting or claiming expertise on the subject of liability on the American legal scene.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Contrary Libertarian Opinion, February 25, 2009

By	Kenneth John (Illinois) - See all my reviews

First, let me say that I agree with Mr. Williams assessment that corporatism is different than capitalism and that most of corporate America is an enemy of free markets. And I also agree that tort law has a place in our legal system to settle disputes.

That being said, Mr. Williams misses the mark when he states that juries rightly heard the evidence and rendered a verdict, many times against the corporations. What he doesn't mention is that the juries aren't fully informed of their rights and duties to judge the law, and are swayed by the jury instructions commanded by the judge that upholds the legal revolution Huber talks about. Does Mr. Williams really believe that a common law jury armed with the knowledge of their rights to make a common sense verdict would have found a lawnmower manufacturer liable for the stupidity of some idiot who stuck his hand underneath an operating lawnmower? That was the case in the Fifties that began the legal revolution Mr. Huber presents in his book.

And since when, Mr. Williams, is contract law not part of libertarian doctrine? Everyone should have the right to waive ones right to sue. In a free society, this aspect of freedom would bring forth many innovations of products that would make us all more prosperous, free, and safe. And that is one of the main arguments in Huber's book.

"The Legal Revolution and its Consequences" is a must read for all those looking for answers to a freer society.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tort law has replaced contract law, February 22, 2007

By	Golden Lion "Reader" (North Ogden, Ut United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

1. Taxes directly cost American individuals, businesses, municipalities, and other government bodies at least $80 billion a year, figure that equals the total profits of the country's top 200 corporations.

2. Tax goes by tort liability and it is collected and disbursed through litigation. The courts alone decide just who will pay, how much, and on what timetable and although the tax is collected for the public benefit the lawyers and other middlemen take more than half for their take.

3. The old contract law was based on choice and the new tort law is based on force. Old contract law was under a different realm from tort law. The founders of modern tort law include names like William Poser, John Wade, and Roger Traynor helping define and shape tort law into an industry.

4. Tort law has its own beliefs and reasons. The first reason goes like this, "most consumers, pay little attention to accident risks before the fact. Ignoring or underestimating risk as they do, consumer fail to demand, and producers fail to supply, as much safety as would be best. As a result, manufacturers, doctors, employers, municipalities, and other producers get away with undue carelessness, consumers buy less accident issuance then they really need, so injuries lead to unneeded misery and privation and some victims become public charges."

5. Tort theorists said the real question was: "How can society best allocate the cost of accidents to minimize those costs and the cost of guarding against them, and to provide the victim with the accident insurance that not all of them currently buy or can afford?" It force providers to be careful. It also forces consumers to take accident costs into account, not consciously but by paying a safety-adjusted price for everything they buy or do.

6. What brought use this liability tax, in short, was a wholesale shift from consent to coercion in the law of accidents. Safety obligations are now decided through liability prescriptions, worked out case by case after the accident. Coercion shifts individual responsibility to group responsibility.

7. Traffic accident claims account for about 40 percent of all tort cases today, have held steady or even declined as states have passed no-fault laws. Plaintiff probability of winning has increased.

8. If the new tort system cannot find a careless defendant after an accident, it will often settle for a merely wealthy one. But the wealthy defendant is more often part of the safety solution than the safety problem.

9. While the consumer has indeed acquired a new and sometimes valuable right to sue, he has done so only by surrendering an older right, the right to contract, which in the long run is worth far more.

10. The key to providing private insurance is to seek out reasonably narrow, well-defined risk groups, whose membership can be precisely described an whose future claims can be predicted with some accuracy.

11. Across the board, modern tort law weights heavily on the spirit of innovation and enterprise. The founder expected that their reforms would have provided constant innovation.

12. The new rules also force providers to sell not only a product or service but also an accident insurance contract with it.

13. The larger message to the consumer is falser still, that being, it is wrong to blame the victim, or indeed anyone who lacks the funds to pay, for to do so means giving up the quest for victim compensation.

14. Anyone who forgoes buying her own insurance on the assumption that liability offers an adequate substitute is living in a dream that will assuredly become a nightmare. Tort liability does not provide safety.

15. California law allow individuals to claim punitive damages, the court explained, the law "provide a motive for private individuals to enforce rules of law and enable them to recoup the expenses of doing so."

16. Educated by the courts, public increasingly came to view accidents as malign and calculated intrusions on the settled order of things: calloused and malevolent verses misled and uninformed.

17. If fear or distress could sustain a million-dollar award when the accompanying physical injury was suspect and uncertain, distress surely could justify even more cash when the accompanying injury was clear and definite. The Gold rule: jurors were urged to consider how much they would demand in exchange for suffer the plaintiff's pain, either gratuitously or as part of a job that required them to endure it.

18. In 1986, an eight year old girl left paralyzed and brain damaged after she fell out of a Jeep won $23.7 million verdict, $6 million for pain and suffering. The jury concluded the girl's mother was 75 percent responsible in failing to lock the door and restrain the child with a seat belt, but the award was issued nevertheless.

19. Today emotional distress suits simply allege a loss of society as the basis for the claim. Loss of service is infinitely easier to price than loss of society.

20. In 1982, tort claims against Ford reach nine and each was over $1 million. A 1986 study by the American Bar Association found that over half of all punitive awards exceed $1 million.

21. The tort revolution: 1. A gymnast won $14.7 million against a exercise mat manufacturer 2. Singer Connie Francis won $1.5 million from a motel in which she was sexually assaulted. 3. A child injured at pay won $2.5 million in a suit that pitted neighbor against neighbor and also involved the manufacturer of the play equipment. 4. A jury awarded Jan Kemp $80,000 in lost wages, $200,000 for mental distress, and $2.3 million in punitive damages for her wrongful discharge after protesting university favoritism to athletes. 5. A jury fined a fabric maker $1 million for what it judged to be defective lack of flame proofing, though the material complied with Flammable Fabrics Act.