Doctrinal Classification and Economic Negligence

This Article discusses the nature of doctrinal classifications and some of the problems rising in third-party cases due to the distinction between tort and contract. These cases can best be understood by recognizing an emerging field of law known as economic negligence. Economic negligence concerns the liability of a contracting party to a third person for negligent performance of a contract. The Author concludes by explaining how the recognition of this field of law addresses the problems that arise from the traditional classification

The Role of Ideas in Legal History

A review of Patterns of American Legal Thought by G. Edward Whit

Practical Legal Studies and Critical Legal Studies

The basic questions that Practical Legal Studies confronts are how judges decide cases and how judges should decide cases. The traditional analytic response to these questions has been that judges apply formal methods of legal reasoning, and the formal methods sufficiently comport with the courts\u27 role in the political structure to provide legitimacy. That response has been untenable for a generation or more; thus PLS has moved to informal legal reasoning as a description of adjudication and as a source of legitimacy. Posner presents a two-part response to the questions. First, judges can relatively easily arrive at the correct decision in many cases by applying either some form of exact inquiry or of practical reason. Second, some indeterminate cases remain in which the correct result is unavailable through these methods; the judge\u27s job in those cases is to apply policy analysis to reach results which are reasonable, if not demonstrably correct