Responsibility, Compensation and Accident Law Reform
Dissertation, University of Adelaide (2007)
| Abstract | This thesis considers two allegations which conservatives often level at no-fault systems — namely, that responsibility is abnegated under no-fault systems, and that no-fault systems under- and over-compensate. I argue that although each of these allegations can be satisfactorily met – the responsibility allegation rests on the mistaken assumption that to properly take responsibility for our actions we must accept liability for those losses for which we are causally responsible; and the compensation allegation rests on the mistaken assumption that tort law’s compensatory decisions provide a legitimate norm against which no-fault’s decisions can be compared and criticized – doing so leads in a direction which is at odds with accident law reform advocates’ typical recommendations. On my account, accident law should not just be reformed in line with no-fault’s principles, but rather it should be completely abandoned since the principles that protect no- fault systems from the conservatives’ two allegations are incompatible with retaining the category of accident law, they entail that no-fault systems are a form of social welfare and not accident law systems, and that under these systems serious deprivation – and to a lesser extent causal responsibility – should be conditions of eligibility to claim benefits. | |||||||||
| Keywords | responsibility compensation tort law reform no-fault distributive justice social welfare | |||||||||
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Similar books and articlesCarl Knight (2011). Responsibility, Desert, and Justice. In Carl Knight & Zofia Stemplowska (eds.), Responsibility and Distributive Justice. Oxford University Press.
Theodore M. Benditt (1982). Liability for Failing to Rescue. Law and Philosophy 1 (3):391 - 418.
Michael L. Corrado (2001). Egalitarianism and the Problem of Tort Liability. Noûs 35 (s1):388-419.
Nicole A. Vincent (2008). Book Review of "Torts, Egalitarianism and Distributive Justice" by Tsachi Keren-Paz. [REVIEW] Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy 33:199-204.
Gerald J. Postema (ed.) (2001). Philosophy and the Law of Torts. Cambridge University Press.
Robert C. Robinson (2010). The Role of Causation in Decision of Tort Law. Journal of Law, Development and Politics 1 (2).
Nicole A. Vincent (2005). Compensation for Mere Exposure to Risk. Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy 29:89-101.
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