September 7, 2008

The Yale/NYU lawprof has published Tort Reform, Kiwi-Style on SSRN (via Robinette, TortsProf). Abstract:

American legal scholars and social scientists have long been intrigued by New Zealand's accident compensation system, which essentially abolished common law tort almost 40 years ago. This paper, prepared for a conference sponsored by the Brookings Institution and Common Good, provides an up-to-date account of the New Zealand system, with a focus on its treatment of two types of claims - for medical injuries and emotional distress - that raise particularly vexing boundary problems for the system. It then discusses a number of lessons that U.S. policymakers and scholars can draw from the New Zealand experience.