Title
Document Type
Article
Comments
107 Michigan Law Review 285 (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.
Date of Authorship for this Version
October 2008
Keywords
law & technology, science & technology, torts, evidence, innovation, negligence, products liability, medical malpractice, custom
Recommended Citation
Parchomovsky, Gideon and Stein, Alex, "Torts and Innovation" (2008). Scholarship at Penn Law. Paper 248.
http://lsr.nellco.org/upenn_wps/248
Included in
Health Law Commons, Injury and Tort Law Commons, Intellectual Property Commons, Law and Economics Commons, Law and Society Commons, Products Liability Commons, Science and Technology Commons