Law and Economics Article

A Skeptical Attitude About Product Liability Is Justified: A Reply to Professors Goldberg and Zipursky

Response to The Easy Case for Products Liability Law: A Response to Professors Polinsky and Shavell, The Uneasy Case for Product Liability
Vol. 123 No. 8 In The Uneasy Case for Product Liability, Professors A. Mitchell Polinsky and Steven Shavell maintained that the benefits of product liability are likely to be less than its costs for many products, especially widely sold ones. The article was intended to alter the dominant view held by the judiciary and commentators that product liability has a clear justification on grounds of public policy. It argued instead that a skeptical attitude toward product liability should be adopted. Professors John Goldberg and Benjamin Zipursky strongly criticize the article in The Easy Case for Products Liability Law: A Response to Professors Polinsky and Shavell. To a significant extent, however, they attack a straw man, for they impute to the article a radical thesis – that product liability should be eliminated for all widely sold products – that Uneasy manifestly did not advance.
Law and Economics Article

The Uneasy Case for Product Liability

Vol. 123 No. 6 In this Article we compare the benefits of product liability to its costs and conclude that the case for product liability is weak for a wide range of products. One benefit of product liability is that it can induce firms to improve product safety. Even in the absence of product liability, however, firms would often be motivated by market forces to enhance product safety because their sales may fall if their products harm consumers. Moreover, products must frequently conform to safety regulations. Consequently, product liability might not exert a significant additional influence on product safety for many products – and empirical studies of several widely sold products lend support to this hypothesis.