Damages

About: Damages is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 9365 publications have been published within this topic receiving 89750 citations. The topic is also known as: compensation award.

Economic analysis of tort law

Abstract: Under tort law, once a physician–patient relationship has been established, it is the physician's responsibility to diagnose and treat the patient with due care. Failure by the physician to carry out his duty constitutes negligence, with the implication that the physician has engaged in malpractice. The injured patient can sue the physician under tort law and recover monetary damages. This chapter discusses a medical malpractice case, Helling v. Carey , that illustrates many facets and tensions within the field of medical malpractice in court and it reviews some reforms that took place from 1974 to 1975. The negligence law does not require the defendant to be altruistic in the sense of being self-abnegating. However, he or she is required to place the welfare of others and his or her own on an equal footing. Conduct that embodies a failure to do so leads to a judgment of negligence under the Incremental Standards of the Learned Hand formula. The chapter also discusses the concept of sovereign immunity and parole decisions. There is obvious merit in more carefully classifying parole decisions into discretionary and ministerial ones. Most decisions by parole agencies to implement those made by parole boards should fall into the second category. Removing immunity from many parole agency activities, though leaving individual officials and parole boards immune, is likely to lead to more carefully considered parole decisions.

A Realistic Evaluation of Climate Change Litigation Through the Lens of a Hypothetical Lawsuit

Abstract: Several dozen cases that can be classified as climate change litigation have been filed worldwide, and legal scholars have already generated a considerable amount of writing on the phenomenon. The debate and scholarship has sometimes gotten ahead of itself, reflecting on the normative implications of outcomes that are still speculative at this point. This article seeks to ground this debate by analyzing the actual legal doctrines that may serve as bases for liability, and seeks to make a realistic evaluation of the likelihood of success of these types of suits. Climate change litigation, in its various forms, raises issues of standing, choice of law, pre-emption, redress, causation, separation of powers, and international comity. Wrestling all of these issues down to an analytical conclusion is intractable; this article seeks to make the problem more manageable by finding a plaintiff that would have a strong and viable claim for climate change damages, and finding a defendant that could most plausibly be sued for such damages. Analyzing the merits of such a suit and the possible forums in which the suit could be brought sheds considerable light on the more general phenomenon of climate change litigation. This article shows that even with a strong plaintiff - the Inuit people of the Arctic region - and vulnerable defendants - U.S. electricity generating companies - the prospects of a successful lawsuit for climate change related damages are mixed. Current law seems to suggest that liability is slightly less probable than not, but certainly not inconceivable. However, the tenuous bases for liability in this hypothetical lawsuit, and the rarity of the characteristics of this plaintiff and these defendants that make this lawsuit plausible, suggests that climate change litigation is unlikely to play a significant role in arresting global climate change. In the end, the bulk of the work in reducing greenhouse gases must be undertaken by nation-states and international agreements.

Brief Communication: An update of the article "Modelling flood damages under climate change conditions - a case study for Germany"

Abstract: . In our first study on possible flood damages under climate change in Germany, we reported that a considerable increase in flood-related losses can be expected in a future warmer climate. However, the general significance of the study was limited by the fact that outcome of only one global climate model (GCM) was used as a large-scale climate driver, while many studies report that GCMs are often the largest source of uncertainty in impact modelling. Here we show that a much broader set of global and regional climate model combinations as climate drivers show trends which are in line with the original results and even give a stronger increase of damages.

Cost containment in climate policy and incentives for technology development.

Abstract: Safety valves, discretionary advisory boards, and other cost containment mechanisms enhance the political feasibility of stringent climate policy by limiting firms' and households' exposures to higher than anticipated costs associated with reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. However, cost containment comes at a price; it increases the risk of climate-related damages and simultaneously discourages invest- ments to develop low-carbon technologies. A stylized model of the cost of climate policy is used to estimate that proposed cost containment mechanisms will increase emissions by 11-70% by 2030. Because these clauses limit the payoffs to innovation, they reduce our societal capacity to affordably mitigate climate change through technology improvement. If cost containment measures are to be employed at levels discussed in recent policy debates, then complementary policies to fund technology development will be needed; crucially, the two also need to be linked. One way to resolve the impasse between increased climatic damages and reduced incentives for innovation is to create a technology development fund with contributions indexed to the amount by which the market price for carbon exceeds the price cap.