Reforming products liability /
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| Author / Creator: | Viscusi, W. Kip |
|---|---|
| Imprint: | Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1991. |
| Description: | xv, 270 p. : ill. ; 25 cm. |
| Language: | English |
| Subject: | |
| Format: | Print Book |
| URL for this record: | http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/1267563 |
Table of Contents:
- Preface
- 1. Diagnosing the Liability Crisis
- Perspectives on Liability Reform
- Recent Trends in Products Liability
- Proposals for Reform
- 2. The Dimensions of the Liability Crisis
- Accident Rates Decline, But Litigation Soars
- The Surge in Asbestos Litigation
- Insurance Industry Trends
- Roots of the Insurance Crisis, 1980-1984
- Other Economic Effects of Products Liability
- The Design Defect Doctrine and Hazard Warnings
- 3. The Litigation Process
- The Overall Structure of Products Liability Litigation
- Court Verdicts
- Claims Settled Out of Court
- Cases That Are Dropped
- Using Economic Models to Assess Reform Proposals
- 4. The Design Defect Test
- A Case Study of Risk-Utility Tradeoffs
- Risk-Utility Analysis
- The Producer as Insurer
- Alternative Risk-Utility Measures
- On the Threshold of Marketability
- Who Decides?
- Proposals for Restructuring the Product Defect Test
- 5. The Explosive Mathematics of Damages
- The Insurance Value and the Deterrence Value of Damages
- Inflation and the Increase in Verdict Awards
- Noneconomic Damages
- Has Voodoo Economics Come to the Courts?
- Applying the Value of Life: The Ford Pinto Case
- Proposals for Setting Damages
- 6. Regulation of Product Safety
- The Adequacy of Incentives
- Regulatory Violations and Products Liability Litigation
- Restructuring the Institutional Interactions
- 7. Hazard Warnings
- The Objectives of Hazard Warnings
- Assessing the Quality of Warnings
- Warnings and the Risk-Utility Test
- Regulatory Compliance
- Toward a National Warnings Policy
- 8. Environmental and Mass Toxic Torts
- The Market Paradigm and Why It Fails
- Products Liability--an Inadequate Remedy
- Agent Orange and the Economic Stakes of Mass Toxic Torts
- Compensation Funds
- Strategies for Mass Toxic Torts
- 9. Workers' Compensation
- Lessons from the Workers' Compensation Experience
- Job-Related Products Liability Claims and Workers' Compensation
- 10. Will Products Liability Reform Matter?
- Insurance Availability
- Products Liability Definitions
- State-of-the-Art Defenses
- Statutes of Limitation
- Collateral Source Rules and Damage Rules
- Effects on Premiums
- Conclusion
- 11. A Strategy for Principled Products Liability Reform
- Appendix A. Products Liability Costs in Different Industries
- Appendix B. The Litigation of Job-Related Claims
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index