Experimental Simulations and Tort Reform: Avoidance, Error and Overreaching in Sunstein Et Al.’s ‘Punitive Damages’

Authors

Neil Vidmar, Duke Law SchoolFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2004

Abstract

This article addresses tort reform claims made in Cass R. Sunstein, et al.'s Punitive Damages: How Juries Decide (2002)and related articles, research that was largely underwritten by the Exxon Corporation. Based upon a series of simulation experiments, those authors have made a general claim that juries are incapable of making coherent judgments about punitive damages. In this article I raise serious methodological problems bearing on the validity of the research, and, therefore, its ability to provide judges and legislators with useful information about juries and punitive damages.

Citation

Neil Vidmar, Experimental Simulations and Tort Reform: Avoidance, Error and Overreaching in Sunstein Et Al.’s ‘Punitive Damages’, 53 Emory Law Journal 1359-1403 (2004)