From: Jakob Heidbrink <Jakob.Heidbrink@ihh.hj.se>
To: obligations@uwo.ca
Date: 31/10/2009 18:54:47 UTC
Subject: Sv: RE: outlandish torts
I'm loth to contradict Ken, but at least as far as Scandinavia is concerned, I don't think that the pop torts are seen as an ill of the Anglo-Saxon world, but, rather, as a very particularly American ill. In fact, I think that the so-called failure of the American tort system is part and parcel of intellectual anti-Americanism in the Nordic countries.

Jakob


B.A., M.Jur. (Oxon), LL.D.
Assistant Professor in Law
Jönköping International Business School
Box 1026
S-551 11 Jönköping
Sweden
Tel.: +46 36 10 1871

>>> Ken Oliphant 09-10-31 19:22 >>>
In Britain, I'd say that the American "pop torts" are seen as indictments of the common law of torts as a whole, and not as peculiarly American. In public debate, there's often a total failure to note that the cases come from another, rather different legal system (with jury trials, as Chaim notes, including jury assessment of damages, plus considerably greater scope for punitive damages, as well as contingency rather than conditional fees). The "McDonald's coffee case" is treated as emblematic of the ills of the system in Britain - and it's hardly ever mentioned that there were McDonald's coffee cases in Britain too - which were entirely unsuccessful.
 
Why pop torts have become so much a part of political debate in Britain is an interesting question. The UK doesn't have a tort reform movement with anything like the clout of that in the US. Instead, the pop torts are worked into a rather reactionary narrative about the decline of individual responsibility and allegedly excessive "regulatory" intrusions on everyday life and individual autonomy.
 
Elsewhere in Europe - but certainly not everywhere else - I sense that outlandish tort stories from the US are indeed dismissed as peculiar to the anglo-saxon world.
 
Best wishes
Ken

From: Chaim Saiman [mailto:Saiman@law.villanova.edu]
Sent: Fri 30/10/2009 8:42 PM
To: obligations@uwo.ca
Subject: outlandish torts

 

I have been following the emails of the past few days with some interest, and note that most of the examples (real and otherwise) are taken from the American context. Moreover, as one poster suggested, some of these hoaxes may be part of a concerted effort by activists on the American scene to paint a cartoonish picture of the American tort system in order to spur on political efforts at tort reform (limitation)

 

My question to this largely non-American audience is whether, from an international perspective, these sort s of suits are seen as uniquely (or typically) American, and if so, is it only on account of the jury, or are there other factors at work.

 

Would be interested in your thoughts.

 

--cs

 

Chaim Saiman

Associate Professor

Villanova Law School

610.519.3296

saiman@law.villanova.edu

http://ssrn.com/author=549545