Policy Objectives: Chapter 2

Question 1

Deterrence: General

Answer 1

General deterrence means deterring every individual, business, government, and other organization from committing a tort.

Question 2

Deterrence: Specific

Answer 2

Specific deterrence means deterring an individual tortfeasor from committing the same tort.

Question 3

Economic Efficiency

Answer 3

According to this standpoint, conduct is worthwhile if the money to be made outweighs the potential costs (including the costs of recompensing those injured), but is unacceptable (and therefore tortious) if the potential costs are greater than the potential profits.

Question 4

Distributive Justice

Answer 4

“In this way, everyone effectively pays a little of the cost instead of having one person or business bear the whole of it.”

Question 5

Boundary Maintenance

Answer 5

This idea is really quite simple: the law should differentiate clearly between right and wrong, and thus set and maintain the boundaries for socially acceptable conduct.

Question 6

Denunciation or Stigmatization

Answer 6

Simply, that it provides society with an opportunity to blame, denounce, or stigmatize the relevant tortfeasor. A classic recent example is the stigmatization of BP over the Deepwater Horizonoil blowout.

Question 7

Appeasement or Vengeance

Answer 7

Providing a mechanism for victims to have their day in court, the law of torts provides them and/or their loved ones with a means of vengeance.

It thus renders unnecessary any “taking of the law into their own hands” and so helps to avoid any potential for anarchy.

Such institutionalized vengeance on the wrongdoer thus also appeases the victim (and his or her family or associates).

Question 8

Retribution

Answer 8

This requires that tortfeasors be punished according to their degree of wrongdoing.

Question 9

Compensation

Answer 9

If the law of torts might be said to have only a limited role to play in deterring bad behavior, punishing bad conduct, stigmatizing tortfeasors, and appeasing victims of torts, perhaps the one thing that can always be said of it is that it provides compensation to those victims.

Question 10

Corrective Justice

Answer 10

This argues that the main function of tort law is to restore the “moral equilibrium” that existed before the tort was committed by having the tortfeasor pay appropriate compensation to the victim.

Question 11

Redress of Social Grievances

Answer 11

The last potential goal of the law of torts is that of redressing social grievances or, more simply, providing a means for holding powerful people accountable for their wrongdoing.