Book: An Injury Law Constitution

Abstract:     
An Injury Law Constitution presents a novel thesis that embraces leading features of the American law of injuries. The book argues that the body of law that Americans have developed concerning responsibility for injuries and prevention of injuries has some of the qualities of a constitution - a fundamental set of principles that govern relations between human persons and between individual persons and corporate and governmental institutions. The historical frame reaches back to Aristotle and goes forward to European human rights law. In the modern American legal environment, this “injury law constitution” includes tort law, legislative compensation systems like workers compensation, and the many statutes that regulate safety of activities and of products including drugs, medical devices, automobile design, and pesticides. The work weaves the history of these systems of law into an analysis that it links to the unique compensation plan devised for the victims of the September 11th attacks. The book examines how our injury law constitution reflects deeply held views in U.S. society on risk and injury, indicating how it provides a guide to the question of what it means to be an American.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 6

Keywords: civil rights, constitutional law, courts, food and drug law, health law and policy, Judges, Law and society, law and technology, legislation, medical jurisprudence, products liability, public law and legla theory, science and technology, torts, workers' compensation law

Accepted Paper Series