Negligence Without Harm

• Author: Yehuda Adar/Ronen Perry
• Position: Associate Professor of Law, University of Haifa/Professor of Law and Director, Aptowitzer Center for the Study of Risk, Liability, and Insurance, University of Haifa
• Pages: 187-235

ARTICLES

Negligence Without Harm

YEHUDA ADAR* & RONEN PERRY**

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

I. THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

A. THE HARM REQUIREMENT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

B. CIRCUMVENTION TACTICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

II. COHERENCE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

A. THE STRUCTURAL INCOHERENCE OF NEGLIGENCE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

1. The Obligational Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

2. The Public Duty Approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

B. RESTORING COHERENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

1. Abolishing the Duty of Care. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

2. Abolishing the Harm Requirement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

III. FAIRNESS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

A. NEGLIGENT CONDUCT AS AN INTERPERSONAL WRONG . . . . . . . . . . . 205

1. The Morally Relevant Features of Negligent Conduct. . . 205

2. Implicit Support from Moral Tort Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . 209

B. POSSIBLE CRITICISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

1. Correlativity Hinges on Harm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

2. Risk Creation Cannot Be a “Bad Act”.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

3. The Argument from Freedom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

IV. EFFICIENCY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

* Associate Professor of Law, University of Haifa. © 2022, Yehuda Adar & Ronen Perry.

** Professor of Law and Director, Aptowitzer Center for the Study of Risk, Liability, and Insurance,

University of Haifa. The authors are grateful to participants in the Hebrew University Private Law

Workshop and the editors of The Georgetown Law Journal for valuable comments on earlier drafts.

187

A. DETERRENCE AND PREVENTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

1. Preventing Inefficient Conduct. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

2. Possible Criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

B. ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

C. LOSS ALLOCATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

1. Compensation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

2. Loss Spreading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

V. REMEDIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

A. INJUNCTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

B. DAMAGES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

1. The Noncompensatory Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

2. Nominal Damages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

3. Punitive Damages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

4. Disgorgement Damages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

5. Risk-Based Damages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

INTRODUCTION

The harm requirement is one of the most fundamental tenets of negligence

law: the tort is incomplete and there can be no legal redress without proof of

actual damage.

1

Mere exposure to risk, even when it is foreseeable and unreason-

able, is not actionable. This Article dares to challenge this time-honored, deep-

rooted, and highly impactful legal axiom.

1. See infra Section I.A. Courts and scholars often state that the harm requirement is a general

characteristic of tort law. See, e.g., JULES L. COLEMAN, RISKS AND WRONGS 198 (1992) (“At the core of

tort law is a certain practice of holding people liable for . . . wrongful losses . . . .”); Martin Stone, The

Significance of Doing and Suffering (“In tort, the plaintiff complains that she has been injured by the

defendant’s wrongdoing.”), in PHILOSOPHY AND THE LAW OF TORTS 131, 134 (Gerald J. Postema ed.,

2001); Kenneth S. Abraham, Essay, What Is a Tort Claim? An Interpretation of Contemporary Tort

Reform, 51 MD. L. REV. 172, 177 (1992) (“[T]ort liability is imposed only when the defendant’s actions

have caused physical harm to the plaintiff . . . .”); Claire Finkelstein, Is Risk a Harm?, 151 U. P

A. L.

REV. 963, 964 (2003) (“In tort, there can be no damages if no one has been harmed . . . .”); John C.P.

Goldberg, Twentieth-Century Tort Theory, 91 GEO. L.J. 513, 516 (2003) (“[T]ort . . . provide[s] redress

for[] injurious wrongs . . . .”). To the extent that the term “tort” is used in its general sense, rather than as

a synonym for negligence, these are inaccurate generalizations. See infra Section II.B.2.

188 THE GEORGETOWN LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 111:187

To instantly understand the Article’s revolutionary contribution to legal theory

and practice, consider the famous case of Michael Buckley, a railroad pipe fitter

who was negligently exposed to asbestos for three years while working for a rail-

way company.

2

Undoubtedly, had Buckley developed cancer, he would have

been entitled to compensation; but he had shown no signs of illness and sued his

employer for negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED) based on the fear

of developing cancer, and for the cost of medical monitoring.

3

The Supreme

Court rejected Buckley’s claims, holding that he did not meet the physical impact

requirement for liability for NIED

4

and that medical monitoring costs are irrecov-

erable when the plaintiff has no symptoms.

5

Under existing negligence doctrine,

Buckley could not pursue an injunction to stop his admittedly negligent exposure

to asbestos at any time. Similarly, he could not seek any monetary award to vindi-

cate his right to a reasonable level of physical security, incentivize the employer

to take reasonable precautions, prevent the employer’s unjust enrichment, or pun-

ish the employer for allegedly reckless conduct. Such claims would be doomed to

fail, simply because negligence is not actionable without harm.

This Article suggests thinking the heretofore unthinkable: abolishing the harm

requirement and making the creation of foreseeable unreasonable risk actionable

per se. It launches a three-pronged attack on the traditional structure of the tort of

negligence. To begin, it shows that the harm requirement creates an internal

inconsistency in tort doctrine. Although the elements of duty and unreasonable

conduct (referred to as “breach of duty”) indicate that negligent conduct should

be actionable in itself, the harm requirement suggests otherwise. This incoher-

ence can be overcome by abolishing the harm requirement.

Next, the Article argues that negligent conduct, defined as exposing another

person to foreseeable unreasonable risk, is an interpersonal moral wrong irrespec-

tive of its consequences. Even so, unless such a risk materializes, current doctrine

denies the wronged party a cause of action against the wrongdoer. The wronged

has no redress beyond praying that the risk does not materialize, and the wrong-

doer is not reprimanded for an apparent wrong. This legal reality is bluntly unfair

(or unjust) as between the two.

Finally, this Article contends that the harm requirement cannot be defended in

terms of efficiency (an economic-analysis-of-law perspective). To the extent that

tort law aims to prevent inefficient conduct, it does not have to await harm and

use the indirect, complicated, and seemingly flawed method of ordering some

people to pay compensatory damages ex post in order to ensure internalization by

others ex ante. Allowing those exposed to unreasonable risks to seek pre-injury

preventive remedies, such as injunctions, punitive damages, or risk-based dam-

ages, is a direct, straightforward, and effective way of achieving the same desira-

ble outcome.

2. Metro-N. Commuter R.R. v. Buckley, 521 U.S. 424, 426–27 (1997).

3. See id. at 427.

4. Id.

5. See id. at 438–44.

2022] NEGLIGENCE WITHOUT HARM 189