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Considerations of economic efficiency are a complete non sequitur. You're either being skilfully provocative, or making a category error. Justice is not a res

• rayiner 10y ago
  It's a completely uncontroversial view of the justice system that it exists to ensure resources are properly allocated: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/files/53.Posner.Values_0.pdf http://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/files/53.Posner.Values_0.p.... For example, one might view lawsuits against polluters as a matter of punishing companies that do harmful things to the environment. I'd argue that's a pretty fuzzy and irrational basis for environmental law. A more rigorous approach is to view environmental lawsuits as forcing polluters to internalize their negative externalities: http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2036&context=ealr http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=.... In that context, meritorious lawsuits that don't get brought are inefficient. They represent a polluter not forced to internalize its externalities, or a business creating risk not forced to bear the costs of that risk, or a business creating harm not forced to compensate the injured. That distorts incentives and leads to more than an efficient amount of harmful activities.