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56 Vand. L. Rev. 977 (2003)
Comparative Fault to the Limits

handle is hein.journals/vanlr56 and id is 991 raw text is: VANDERBILT LAW REVIEW VOLUME 56 MAY 2003 NUMBER 4 Comparative Fault to the Limits Ellen M. Bublick* I. INTRODU CTION .................................................................... 978 II. DEFINING PLAINTIFFS' OBLIGATION OF CARE: THE RESTATEMENT OF LIABILITY FOR PHYSICAL HARM ............. 984 III. COMPARATIVE FAULT AND ITS LIMITS ................................. 988 A. The Form of Limits ................................................. 989 B. The Role of Principle or Policy ............................... 991 C. Traditional Lim its .................................................. 993 D. The Rationale for Limits ........................................ 994 E. Principle and Policy Factors .................................. 999 1. Plaintiff Incapacity ...................................... 999 2. Structural Safety ........................................ 1004 a. Experience Differentials ................... 1004 b. Education and Information D ifferentials ...................................... 1007 c. Control Differentials ......................... 1012 d. Com binations .................................... 1016 3. Role D efinition ............................................ 1017 4. The Values of Process ................................. 1021 a. Litigants' Welfare ............................. 1021 b. Administrative Ease ......................... 1022 c. Absolute Judgments ......................... 1022 5. Fundamental Values .................................. 1023 Associate Professor of Law, University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. A.B., Duke University; J.D., Harvard Law School. For helpful comments and suggestions, I thank Graeme Austin, Anita Bernstein, Dan Dobbs, Oscar Gray, Mike Green, Toni Massaro, Richard Posner, Jamie Ratner, Ted Schneyer, Anthony Seebok, Aaron Twerski, Richard Wright, participants in the Negligence in the Law Symposium at IIT-Kent Law School and the faculty workshop series at Brooklyn Law School, and the editors of the Vanderbilt Law Review. Thanks also to my exceptional research assistants Kai Yu, Jo Evelyn Ivey, and Lisa Vander Vliet who helped me find and think through the interesting set of cases that underlie and shape this argument. I am also grateful to alumni James Rogers and Steve Hirsch for their generous financial support of faculty scholarship.