Do Parties to Nuisance Cases Bargain after Judgment? A Glimpse Inside the Cathedral

University of Chicago Law Review, Spring 1999

Posted: 17 May 1999

See all articles by Ward Farnsworth

Ward Farnsworth

University of Texas at Austin - School of Law

Abstract

This Article examines the aftermath of twenty ordinary nuisance cases, and finds no bargaining after judgment in any of them; nor did the parties' lawyers believe that bargaining would have occurred if judgment had been given to the loser. The lawyers said that the possibility of such bargaining was foreclosed by animosity between the parties and by their distaste for cash bargaining over the rights at issue. The Article considers a number of questions raised by these results, including the following: Might the obstacles to bargaining in these cases be related to the absence of robust markets for the rights at stake? Should animosity or a distaste for bargaining be considered types of "transaction costs"? It is common for economic analysts of remedies to use nuisance cases as examples to illustrate their models; what are the implications of these results for the usefulness of those models? Might greater particularity might be needed before economic models can generate advice about remedies reliable enough to be useful to courts?

Note: This is a description of the article and is not the actual abstract.

Suggested Citation

Farnsworth, Ward, Do Parties to Nuisance Cases Bargain after Judgment? A Glimpse Inside the Cathedral. University of Chicago Law Review, Spring 1999, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=164348

Ward Farnsworth (Contact Author)

University of Texas at Austin - School of Law ( email )

727 East Dean Keeton Street
Austin, TX 78705
United States

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