Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Abstract

The four principal papers in this symposium illustrate the rich diversity of approaches that may be taken toward the question of causation- long and rightly regarded as one of the central issues in the law. In this afterword, I shall address myself to some of the recurrent questions of causation that intrude themselves into the legal, economic and philosophical account of the subject. The purpose of this paper is to give some indication of the proper place that causation has in a comprehensive theory of tort law, indeed of civil obligation. The task, then, is to place causation back into the context from which it is all too often wrenched. In order to do that it is necessary to recanvass, in some degree, the major issues of tort law. Accordingly, the first section addresses the question of whether it is possible to have a baseline of property rights which distinguishes violence from competition, and thus allows the emergence of a theory of tort liability that depends heavily on causal concepts. The next section addresses the extent to which a theory of tort liability should be predicated upon negligence or strict liability. The third section addresses the question of whether causation is a nonreciprocal concept, which vitiates its use in tort theory. The fourth section deals with remoteness of damage issues. The fifth section then deals with some recurrent joint causation issues, including those involving the extrasensitive plaintiff. Finally, the sixth section addresses the relationship between causation, contract and regulation, and thus uses the analysis as a window onto some larger questions of political theory. In the course of this paper, I have used the occasion to clarify some of my own views on the subject, views which have evolved constantly over the fifteen years since I wrote "A Theory of Strict Liability."'

First Page

653

Volume

63

Publication Date

1987

Download

Share

COinS