The Impact of the Civil Jury on American Tort Law

Abstract

This article, a contribution to a symposium on the what American tort law can contribute to the rest of the world expresses skepticism that a considerable swath of U.S. tort law would be of interest to the rest of the world. The thesis is that American tort law has been shaped by the existence of the civil jury, unique to the U.S, and areas of domestic tort law so influenced have no utility internationally. The article catalogues many such areas and discusses several of them.