In a message dated 11/20/02 11:50:17 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< Armchairs:
What are the pros and cons of limiting liability for the maker of a new
vaccine? It seems to me that a disadvantage of limited liability is the
moral hazard that the maker will do a less responsible job of trying to
prevent bad side effects. One advantage that has been put forth is that
limiting liability gets us a vaccine sooner as firms are reluctant to
make a new drug in the face of possible law suits for bad side effects.
Is there alternate set of rules not involving limited liability that
could be adopted to obtain a safe drug in a timely fashion?
All the best,
Asa Janney >>
For some time now I've wondered about limited liability. A buddy of mine did
his dissertation on limited liability in the British context, and as I recall
(at least tentatively) concluded that the reduction in investment from having
no limited liability would have been small, and that Parliament granted it in
its general form for another or other reasons. (I just wrote to him to see
what he ended up concluding in the final draft). Limited liability has long
struck me as something rather odd, as it unilaterally abrogates the rights of
all contingent creditors of the enterprise (potential tort victims). I'm
quite interested to hear how people on the list view this phenomenon.
David Levenstam
