Economic Models of Legal Complexity and Liability Rules
{'Code': '04050200', 'Directorate': {'Abbreviation': 'SBE', 'LongName': 'Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie'}, 'Division': {'Abbreviation': 'SES', 'LongName': 'Divn Of Social and Economic Sciences'}}
{'SignBlockName': 'Lisa Martin', 'PO_EMAI': None, 'PO_PHON': None}
Economic considerations shape the contours of litigation and may serve          as deterrents to negligent behavior which in turn could lead to                 litigation.  Estimates of the magnitude and probability of gain may be          expected to shape lawyers' preferences for a given level of complexity          of legal doctrines.  Such estimates also operate through liability              rules to affect incentives to take care to avoid accidents.                     Specifically, Dr. White focuses on two topics in the area where law and         economics intersect:  1) modeling the level of complexity of legal              doctrines and 2) re-examining the dominant liability rule in U. S. law,         the comparative negligence rule in accident law, and conducting                 empirical analysis of the application of negligence rules using a data          set of automobile accidents in Calfornia.  The investigation of the             model of legal complexity and how it affects the behavior of lawyers            and litigants and the outcome of cases includes consideration of the            implications of different modes of payment for lawyers and of cases             involving tax law in which the plaintiff is always the IRS, which has           the double objective of maximizing the amount of unpaid taxes collected         via audits or litigations and of minimizing taxpayers' incentives to            evade taxes in the first place.  Also, the study draws the important            distinction between substantive and procedural legal complexity.  In            the specification of a model of the effects of liability rules on               accident avoidance incentives, account is taken of the possibility that         both parties may consider themselves victims, that courts make errors           in deciding liability, that the due care standard used by courts to             determine liabililty may vary widely across cases, and that drivers             themselves may make mistakes.                                                                                                                                   The theoretical and empirical analyses on these topics promise to               illuminate our understanding of the existence of economic efficiencies          and inefficiencies of the law and their impact.  Most of the                    examinations of the complexity of legal doctrines have assumed it as            given.  In contrast, one portion of this study focuses on legal                 complexity as an element manipulable by lawyers in their roles as               legislators and judges and having an effect on lawyers in their role as         litigators.  It examines the patterns of the relationship between the           level of complexity and the predicted outcome of litigation.  The               project has the potential to increase our knowledge of the economic and         social implications of legal complexity, particularly by means of               developing a normative model, which considers whether there is any              social gain, that is, any increase in the probability of an accurate            verdict, from adopting legal objectives that are more than minimally            complex.  The project's empirical analysis of the application of                negligence rules in the context of a reconsideration of the incentive           structure for avoiding accidents will contribute to our understanding           of liability under circumstances where it cannot be determined in               advance who is the injurer and who is the victim.
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[{'Code': '1320', 'Text': 'Economics'}, {'Code': '1372', 'Text': 'LSS-Law And Social Sciences'}]
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