NCJ Number
136462
Journal
Notre Dame Law Review Volume: 67 Issue: 1 Dated: (1991) Pages: 51-96
Date Published
1991
Length
46 pages
Annotation
This article explores the theory of corrective justice constructed and defended by Jules Coleman.
Abstract
Coleman has argued that the principle of corrective justice cannot explain all of contemporary tort doctrine. He insists on the conceptual necessity of justifying tort law via piecemeal moral theory as opposed to the efforts of other jurists, including Oliver Wendell Holmes, who have argued that tort law should be unified under the single principle of corrective justice. Coleman's theory, which is taught in law school tort courses, denies the availability of a similar perspective to retributivists, consequentialists, and distributive justice theorists. This article describes the theory of corrective justice and Coleman's view of the limited explanatory power that the theory has in the field of tort law. The author analyzes the theory of liability generated by Coleman's analysis as well as the theory of recovery that he juxtaposes to this theory of liability. 92 notes