Routledge Economic Analysis of Tort Law: The Negligence Determination

This book looks at the negligence concept of tort law and studies the efficiency issue arising from the determination of negligence. It does so by scrutinizing actual court decisions from three common law jurisdictions – Britain, India and the United States of America. This volume fills a very significant gap, scrutinizing 52 landmark judgments from these three countries, by focussing on the negligent affliction of economic loss determined by common law courts and how these findings relate to the existing theoretical literature. By doing so, it examines the formalization of legal concepts in theory, primarily the question of negligence determination and liability, and their centrality in theories concerning tort law. This book will be very helpful for students, professors and practitioners of law, jurisprudence and legal theory. It will additionally be of use to researchers and academics interested in law and economics, procedure and legal history. Review "This study of tort cases from three jurisdictions from the perspective of negligence determination is an important contribution to the law and economics literature. The in-depth and scholarly analysis carried out in the book makes it clear that from the perspective of economic efficiency it is of utmost importance to differentiate between the two ways of determining negligence. The value of the book lies in bringing to the fore an aspect of the tort law that is of great importance from the efficiency perspective. This eminently readable text, therefore, should be of interest not only to those interested in the sub-discipline of law and economics but to judges and lawyers concerned with tort law as well." ―Satish K. Jain, Retired Professor in Economics, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India "The book makes an important contribution to the literature on economic analysis of liability rules. The primary focus of the book is on determination of negligence/non-negligence in actual judicial decision making. The exercise is undertaken through careful analysis of adjudicated cases from three legal jurisdictions of India, the United Kingdom and the United States. The work demonstrates that determination of negligence standard by courts has implications for the distribution of accident loss between and among the parties involved. More importantly, it has implications for efficiency properties of liability rules as predicted by the standard economic models." ―Ram Singh, Professor in Economics, Delhi School of Economics, India "The discipline of law and economics is as yet a young and emerging area of research in India. The book makes an important contribution to this very area. The book is very well-written, and it was a pleasure to study a work such as this." ―Naresh Kumar Sharma, Professor in Economics, University of Hyderabad, India "In my opinion, the overall impact and reach of the book is likely to go beyond the exact topic because it tries to relate a formal theory in the law and economics literature to its actual empirical context in a way which has largely been missing so far. The book is going to be a significant contribution to the very thin literature on the economic analysis of judgments from the Indian courts. In my opinion, the book tries to present the author's very competent, scholarly and relevant research in a cogent manner." ―Rajendra P. Kundu, Professor in Economics, Ambedkar University Delhi, India About the Author Malabika Pal is Associate Professor of Economics at Miranda House, University of Delhi. She has worked as Associate Professor of Law and Legal Studies at the School of Law, Governance and Citizenship, Ambedkar University, New Delhi. Her research interests are in the fields of law and economics and international finance. She is a recipient of the National Scholarship and the Ford Foundation Scholarship.