The Constitutional Status of Tort Law

Thanks to Ian at Yale for bringing this to my attention.

Professor John C. P. Goldberg, the Associate Dean for Research at Vanderbilt Law School, has written an article for the Yale Law Journal discussing the Constitutional status of tort law, and of proposed tort reforms.

"In short, anyone who takes history seriously will find it difficult to disavow the existence of a federal right of victim access to what we today know as tort law, a corresponding duty on states to provide such law, and a corresponding power in the courts to consider whether certain forms of legislation so undermine tort law, with so little justification, as to amount to a breach of that duty."

Professor Goldberg offers powerful arguments that many of the changes to tort law proposed by big business may in fact be unconstitutional.  Perhaps some of his research and ideas may someday be used to repair the damage done to our justice system in states such as Texas.