'Go Sue Yourself!' Imagining Intrapersonal Liability for Negligently Self-Inflicted Harms

Abstract

Are “self-inflicted” harms actionable? Courts increasingly have allowed victims to identify other (typically unrelated) parties that may share responsibility for such injuries. Moreover, insofar as judges now also permit lawsuits against closely related parties, they arguably have expanded what it means for a harm to qualify as self-inflicted. Taking these various doctrinal developments to an illogical extreme, this paper asks whether we should just let victims bring tort claims against themselves, understanding that the victims’ own liability insurers represent the intended targets. That this idea is not as crazy as it sounds suggests the extent to which tort law has become unhinged.

JEL Classification: K13, K41