Efficient Tort Damages for Serious Permanent Physical Injury

死亡和严重永久性伤害的最优损害赔偿问题是当今社会面临的最重要问题之一。虽然人们普遍认为，目前的奖励水平并不是最理想的，但对于奖励应该是什么，还没有达成共识。这种缺乏共识导致了截然相反的趋势。在立法机构试图通过使用上限来减少死亡和永久性伤害的损害赔偿的同时，法院正在增加死亡和严重永久性伤害的允许赔偿。尽管辩论经常激烈，但关于什么构成最优损害规则和损害赔偿，几乎没有做过严格的学术研究。阿伦教授试图通过她的研究来解决这个问题。她的项目侧重于单一活动事故，特别是汽车事故造成的严重永久性人身伤害的有效损害。这项工作旨在确定在两种情况下，什么损害赔偿会导致有效的冒险和风险分散行为：所有受伤的个人遭受相同的损失，或者当事人不一定遭受相同的损失。车祸案例具有重要的现实意义和理论意义。车祸是当代生活中意外造成严重永久性伤害的主要原因。此外，这种单一的事故活动允许在以下情况下确定效用最大化损害规则：(1)个人同时承担受伤和受伤的风险，以及(2)面临支付和接受损害赔偿的可能性。

The issue of optimal damages for death and serious permanent injury is one of the most important questions facing society today. Although it is generally agreed that current award levels are not optimal, no consensus has been reached on what the awards should be. This lack of consensus has resulted in diametrically opposed trends. At the same time that legislatures are trying to reduce damage awards for death and permanent injury by using caps, courts are increasing allowable recovery for death and serious permanent injury. Despite the ofttimes fervor of the debate, little rigorous scholarship has been done on what constitutes optimal damage rules and damage awards. Professor Arlen seeks to address this issue through her research. Her project focuses on efficient damages from serious permanent physical injuries resulting from single activity accidents, in particular automobile accidents. The work aims to determine what damage awards induce efficient risk-taking and risk-spreading behavior under two conditions: where all injured individuals suffer identical losses or where parties do not necessarily suffer the same losses. The case of the automobile accident is both practically and theoretically important. Automobile accidents are a primary cause of accidental serious permanent injury in contemporary life. Further, such a single accident activity allows determining utility maximizing damage rules in situations (1) where individuals run risks of both injuring and being injured and (2) face the possibility of both paying and receiving damage awards.