Torts 2.0

Abstract

In this Symposium Essay, I analogize the American Law Institute's Restatement (Third) of Torts to "Web 2.0." The story of the Third Restatement and its progenitors bears a remarkable resemblance to the great technological revolution of the last century's end: the World Wide Web. Web. 1.0, the first generation of internet activity, treated users as passive. Web 2.0, by contrast, is organic and allowes user preferences to drive site development.

Like Web 2.0, the Third Restatement embraces the "architecture of participation" in the development of tort law. Instead of a top-down approach, ala Web 1.0 and the Second Restatement of Torts, the Third Restatement's embrace of a flexible and open-ended formulation of key tort principles encourages judges and juries to play a participatory role in developing the law of torts.

Keywords: torts, restatement