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Using Litigation to Make Public Health Policy: Theoretical and Empirical Challenges in Assessing Product Liability, Tobacco, and Gun Litigation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Timothy D. Lytton
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Extract

In recent years, a number of prominent scholars have touted the use of litigation as an effective tool for making public health policy. For example, Stephen Teret and Michael Jacobs have asserted that product liability claims against car makers have played a significant role in reducing automobile-related injuries, Peter Jacobson and Kenneth Warner have argued that litigation against cigarette manufacturers has advanced the cause of tobacco control, and Phil Cook and Jens Ludwig have suggested that lawsuits against the firearms industry can reduce gun violence. Critics have attacked this use of litigation as doing more harm than good to public health and as a misuse of the courts. This debate involves two distinct controversies: one over whether the public health benefits of litigation outweigh its costs and the other over the proper role of courts within our system of government.

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , Winter 2004 , pp. 556 - 564
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2004

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References

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I am indebted to Peter Schuck for pointing this out.Google Scholar
I am indebted to Robert Rabin for pointing out that in many instances, legislatures, not courts, are the “gap fillers.”Google Scholar
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