Rational Legal Decision-Making, Value Judgment and Efficient Precaution in Tort law

By reinterpreting Savage axioms as axioms of the social rationality over resource allocations, we derive a social welfare function encompassing individual social values and a social attitude towards distributional inequality. Wealth maximization becomes the purpose of law only if individuals have equal social values and the society does not care about distributional inequality. In tort law, when the injurer is less socially valued than the victim, the society imposes a stricter due precaution level, and punitive damages will be awarded. Tort law also implicitly transfers wealth from the less socially valued party to the more socially valued party.rationality; value judgement; tort law; punitive damage

Epidemic spreading and risk perception in multiplex networks: a self-organized percolation method

In this paper we study the interplay between epidemic spreading and risk perception on multiplex networks. The basic idea is that the effective infection probability is affected by the perception of the risk of being infected, which we assume to be related to the fraction of infected neighbours, as introduced by Bagnoli et al., PRE 76:061904 (2007). We re-derive previous results using a self-organized method, that automatically gives the percolation threshold in just one simulation. We then extend the model to multiplex networks considering that people get infected by contacts in real life but often gather information from an information networks, that may be quite different from the real ones. The similarity between the real and information networks determine the possibility of stopping the infection for a sufficiently high precaution level: if the networks are too different there is no mean of avoiding the epidemics.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

A Note on the Equivalence between Contractual and Tort Liability

The aim of this paper is to conciliate some conclusions of the economic theories of breach of contract and tort law. The main result is that the two efficient alternatives that tort law identifies (negligence rule and strict liability with a defense of contributory negligence) are mirrored by two efficient ways of defining contract damages. The first consists of forcing the debtor to pay expectation damages but limiting the level of the creditor’s reliance (rule of damage mitigation). The second consists of obliging the debtor to pay expectation damages only when his breach of contract implies negligence, otherwise using restitution remedies (doctrines of impracticability and force majeure).

Legal Liability when Individuals Have Moral Concerns

We incorporate normative motivations into the economic model of accidents and tort rules. The social norm is that one should avoid harming others and should compensate if nevertheless harm is caused. To some extent, this is internalized through intrinsic moral concerns; moreover, those thought not to adhere to the norm are met with social disapproval. Moral and reputational concerns are not strong enough, however, for injurers to willingly compensate their victims. Absent legal liability, normative concerns induce precautions to prevent harm but precautions are then socially inefficient. By contrast, perfectly enforced legal liability crowds out informal incentives completely (e.g., individuals causing harm suffer no stigma) but precautions are then socially efficient. Under imperfectly enforced legal liability, formal legal sanctions and normative concerns are complements and interact to induce more precautions than under no-liability.Intrinsic motivations, social norms, esteem, strict liability, negligence, crowding out

A Self-Organized Method for Computing the Epidemic Threshold in Computer Networks

In many cases, tainted information in a computer network can spread in a way similar to an epidemics in the human world. On the other had, information processing paths are often redundant, so a single infection occurrence can be easily "reabsorbed". Randomly checking the information with a central server is equivalent to lowering the infection probability but with a certain cost (for instance processing time), so it is important to quickly evaluate the epidemic threshold for each node. We present a method for getting such information without resorting to repeated simulations. As for human epidemics, the local information about the infection level (risk perception) can be an important factor, and we show that our method can be applied to this case, too. Finally, when the process to be monitored is more complex and includes "disruptive interference", one has to use actual simulations, which however can be carried out "in parallel" for many possible infection probabilities

Strategic Judgment Proofing

A liquidity-constrained entrepreneur needs to raise capital to finance a business activity that may cause injuries to third parties --- the tort victims. Taking the level of borrowing as fixed, the entrepreneur finances the activity with senior (secured) debt in order to shield assets from the tort victims in bankruptcy. Interestingly, senior debt serves the interests of society more broadly: it creates better incentives for the entrepreneur to take precautions than either junior debt or outside equity. Unfortunately, the entrepreneur will raise a socially excessive amount of senior debt, reducing his incentives for care and generating wasteful spending. Giving tort victims priority over senior debtholders in bankruptcy prevents over-leveraging but leads to suboptimal incentives. Lender liability exacerbates the incentive problem even further. A Limited Seniority Rule, where the firm may issue senior debt up to an exogenous limit after which any further borrowing is treated as junior to the tort claim, dominates these alternatives. Shareholder liability, mandatory liability insurance and punitive damages are also discussed.

A Neglected Interdependency in Liability Theory

The standard economic model of bilateral precaution concludes that (in the absence of uncertainty, misperception, or error) all negligence-based liability rules induce socially optimal behavior by both injurers and victims. This paper generalizes the standard model to consider situations in which one party’s precaution affects not only expected accident loss, but also directly affects the other party’s effort—or cost—of taking precaution. If the injurer’s care affects the victim’s precaution costs (but not vice versa), most of the standard results continue to hold (except for strict liability with a defense of contributory negligence). If the victim’s precaution affects the injurer’s costs of care (but not vice versa), only strict liability with a defense of contributory negligence leads to the social optimum, while the other negligence-based rules lead to suboptimal outcomes. In the general case (where each party’s costs depend on both parties’ levels of precaution), none of the standard liability rules induce socially optimal behavior in both parties. The paper’s other main result concerns the possibility of self-interested, negligent behavior in equilibrium. Under negligence with a defense of contributory negligence, the only equilibrium is in the mixed strategies of both injurer and victim. This involves the parties choosing (with strictly positive probability) to behave negligently, and gives rise to the possibility of successful litigation in equilibrium, even though there is no uncertainty, misperception, or error. The paper concludes by considering the implications of these results for the design of liability rules.law and economics, and tort law

Governors State University Operating Plan - Academic Year 2022-2023

Throughout the pandemic, Governors State University (the “University” or “GSU”) has prioritized the health and safety of the GSU community while focusing on providing high-quality instruction and advising, no matter the delivery platform. It will continue to do so for Academic Year 2022-23 (AY23) as outlined in this plan. The times are unprecedented, and the campus has drawn on its history of innovation and flexibility to construct the AY23 Operating Plan (the “Operating Plan”) with its models of working and learning that meet campus needs. This Operating Plan represents the framework within which decisions will be made for Summer 2022 and AY23. Our actions are guided by the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) and the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) layered prevention strategy to limit the spread of Covid-19. Precaution levels, set as green-yellow-red, guide our operations. Please monitor our campus website as it will reflect our most current response to COVID- 19 and indicate our current Public Health Precaution Level (green, yellow, red). Additionally, the University is following the Illinois mandate which requires that those eligible to receive a vaccination for Covid-19 do so and submit proof of vaccination to the Campus Covid-19 portal. These requirements are found in the posted GSU policy linked here. Those that remain unvaccinated are required to submit a weekly test of a negative response to the Covid-19 virus to remain compliant with Governor Pritzker’s Executive Order. GSU does not require testing for all regardless of vaccination status. However, GSU strongly encourages all community members to test before returning to campus after travel or being around large crowds, regardless of vaccination status. GSU also strongly urges all community members who are eligible to receive a vaccine booster to get one as soon as possible. The University will continue to monitor conditions and may update its testing policy if there is a change in the Governor’s order. And, of course, all members of the community are expected to monitor their health conditions on a daily basis and refrain from coming to campus if they exhibit symptoms of COVID-19

LEGAL AND ECONOMIC ASPECT OF LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES

Protection of violated or endangered rights and determination of facts in court proceedings often go beyond the field of law and require the involvement of experts in other fields. In dealing with technical, medical, economic, and other issues, expert witnesses are hired whose findings and opinions can be crucial and influence the final court decision. For this reason, it is important that the expert witness has human and professional qualities that qualify him for the expert witnessing job. The existing legal solutions do not envisage training or the obligation of continuous professional development of expert witnesses, which may adversely affect the quality of expertise and the efficiency of court proceedings. In this respect, it is necessary to improve the existing legal framework and to categorize and license the expert witnesses in order for their engagement to be in accordance with court requirements. In addition to thetraining of expert witnesses, it is necessary to improve the training of judges. For the purposes of deciding in intangible damage compensation proceedings, judges must be aware of medical law, as lack or insufficient knowledge of medical law can be the reason for accepting expert witness findings without objectio