Recognizing Wrongs

Much bemoaned and widely misunderstood, tort law provides an essential vehicle for injured parties to seek redress from wrongdoers and hold them accountable. John Goldberg and Benjamin Zipursky defend tort law against its critics and lay out comprehensively their increasingly influential “civil recourse” conception of tort.

Table of Contents:
Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Contents Introduction I. Civil Recourse 1. Civil Wrongs and Civil Rights 2. Against the Grain 3. Rules, Duties, Rights, and Rights of Action 4. The Principle of Civil Recourse: A Defense 5. Damages as Redress II. The Wrongs of Tort Law 6. Moral Luck, Strict Liability, and Victim Standing: Three Features of Tortious Wrongdoing 7. Dual Instrumentalism 8. Dual Constructivism III. Wrongs and Recourse in Context 9. Civil Recourse in the Modern World 10. Applications: The Duty of Care, Design Defects, and Internet Libel Conclusion: Recognizing Wrongs Acknowledgments Index

Review :
Recognizing Wrongs is powerful and elegant. It proposes that civil recourse simultaneously best explains actual tort practice and presents this practice in its best light, as part of what free and equal citizens demand from their government as a condition of recognizing its legitimacy. Goldberg and Zipursky combine a subtle appreciation for doctrine with powerful theoretical arguments. A major achievement. -- Daniel Markovits, Guido Calabresi Professor of Law, Yale Law School Recognizing Wrongs will be of interest to everyone who studies tort law and to many who practice it. Goldberg and Zipursky are the best in the business. This book is historically rich, theoretically sophisticated, and is bound to be a touchstone for tort theory for decades to come. -- Scott Hershovitz, Thomas G. and Mabel Long Professor of Law, and Professor of Philosophy, University of Michigan The most important work in tort theory in the contemporary period. If you teach or write on tort law, you really must read this book. -- Lawrence Solum Legal Theory Blog Sophisticated, wide-ranging, and multilayered: it intelligently traverses medieval English history, the Declaration of Independence, the philosophy of language, the Lockean state of nature, Internet libel, the influence of legal realism on legal education, corrective justice, and much more...As much an account of legal reasoning as it is an account of tort law. -- Stephen A. Smith University of Toronto Law Journal A highly readable conspectus of roughly two decades' worth of first-rate tort theory. The breadth and depth of learning on offer in this book is as impressive as it is skillfully deployed...Comes as close to being a 'page-turner' as a work of legal theory is ever likely to get...Just about the best book on tort theory for many, many years. -- John Murphy Cambridge Law Journal Excellent...I highly recommend Recognizing Wrongs as a fascinating analysis of a distinctive normative system...An impressive and rich account of tort law...The purpose of the institution of tort law is to remedy legal wrongs that take place between private actors. It is not another branch of regulatory law. Unless we keep that in mind, tort reform may leave victims without remedies. By providing a robust interpretation of torts as wrongs, Goldberg and Zipursky make a major contribution to these debates. -- Linda Radzik Ethics