英文赌池累积正义和美国侵权法体系：超过垃圾科学的思量SSRN-id1152306.pdfVIP

LEGAL STUDIES RESEARCH PAPER SERIES Paper No. 95 July 2008 Jackpot Justice and the American Tort System: Thinking Beyond Junk Science Tom Baker University of Pennsylvania School of Law tombaker@ Herbert Kritzer William Mitchell College of Law herbert.kritzer@ Neil Vidmar Duke Law School vidmar@ This paper can be downloaded without charge from the Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection: /abstract= 1152306 July, 2008 Jackpot Justice and the American Tort System: Thinking Beyond Junk Science Tom Baker, Herbert Kritzer and Neil Vidmar 1 In 2007 the Pacific Research Institute released a report, Jackpot Justice: The True Cost of America’s Tort System, that is widely available on the internet.2 The conclusion of the report is that America’s tort system costs $865.37 billion annually, amounting to an “annual price tag, or ‘tort tax’ for a family of four in terms of costs and foregone benefits” of $9,827. As our report will demonstrate, the conclusions of Jackpot Justice are without scientific merit and present a very misleading picture of the American tort system and its costs.3 Research on the tort system’s efficiency, its fairness and other issues are legitimate topics of empirical inquiry and are to be encouraged. Indeed, the three authors of this report have collectively de