損害賠償額の調整による環境リスクコントロール ― 損害賠償法のリスク抑止力の改善策 ―

概要

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The literature on law and economics denotes that tort law optimizes the injuring firms’ precaution.But this function is weakened, when the firms cause environmental harm, because the firms can sometimesescape liability due to expensive litigation costs and victims’ difficulty in establishing the cause of theirdamage to be the firms’ activities. In USA, punitive damages sometimes are levied on the firms in orderto solve the underdeterrence problem. Although there are many studies on punitive damages, almost allof them ignore the judgment proof problem which is thought to often occur in case of environmental risks.This paper analyzes punitive damages as adjusted damages in order to revitalize the deterrence of tort lawfor environmental risks, taking the firms’ insolvency into account. It is shown that both having the firmspay adjusted damages and increasing the probability that the firms pay the victims are useful policy.
2010-08-24