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Tort Reform and Manufacturer Payout ‐ An Early Look at the California Experience *
Author(s) -
GRADDY ELIZABETH
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
law and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.534
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1467-9930
pISSN - 0265-8240
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9930.1994.tb00116.x
Subject(s) - tort reform , plaintiff , tort , joint and several liability , legislature , liability , damages , business , proposition , intervention (counseling) , actuarial science , law , economics , finance , political science , medicine , philosophy , epistemology , psychiatry
Manufacturers actively lobbied in the 1980s for legislative intervention in the tort system that would ease the burden on defendants in products liability cases. In response, all states enacted some type of general tort reform. California eliminated joint and several liability for noneconomic damages with the approval by voters in 1986 of Proposition 51. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of the California reform on manufacturer outcomes in products liability cases. The results suggest that manufacturers are paying a lower proportion of plaintiff awards than they would have in the absence of Proposition 51.