PSCI 4396 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Toxic Tort, Microsoft Onenote, Junk Science
20 Jan 2016
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Document Summary
Leading to lots of fights to reform the system, led by industry and insurance. The law needs to determine the answer of this question. Trend for most of 20th century is loosening liability standards. Push back on this to try and tighten liability standards. Argument from industry is easy liability standards have stymied innovation. Drugs that would have come to market didn"t due to potential liability. Prices for things may be higher due to the risk of lawsuit. Reformers allege loosened liability came through by accident. Courts took on case by case, ended up with a policy nobody wants. Environmentalists and plaintiff firms argue exactly the opposite. Tort system have been highly effective at delivering compensation. Good way to force industry to be careful about what they release. By 1970s, scientific studies started to connect a lot of chemicals to human diseases. Ecologists start to show these chemicals stay in the environment.
