IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/rje/randje/v24y1993iwinterp625-630.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Shifting Plaintiffs' Fees versus Increasing Damage Awards

Author

Listed:
  • Louis Kaplow

Abstract

Shifting victorious plaintiffs' fees to defendants and increasing damage awards are alternative ways to achieve similar results: increasing plaintiffs' incentives to sue and raising defendants' expected payments. This article shows that relying on higher damage awards is more efficient than shifting plaintiffs' fees. The reason is that fee shifting is more valuable for plaintiffs with higher litigation costs. Thus, it is possible to substitute higher damage awards for fee shifting in a manner that leaves deterrence unaffected while eliminating the suits of plaintiffs with the highest litigation costs.

Suggested Citation

  • Louis Kaplow, 1993. "Shifting Plaintiffs' Fees versus Increasing Damage Awards," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 24(4), pages 625-630, Winter.
    • Handle: RePEc:rje:randje:v:24:y:1993:i:winter:p:625-630
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0741-6261%28199324%2924%3A4%3C625%3ASPFVID%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A&origin=repec
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. A. Mitchell Polinsky & Yeon-Koo Che, 1991. "Decoupling Liability: Optimal Incentives for Care and Litigation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 22(4), pages 562-570, Winter.
    3. Katz, Avery, 1987. "Measuring the Demand for Litigation: Is the English Rule Really Cheaper?," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 143-176, Fall.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chopard, Bertrand & Cortade, Thomas & Langlais, Eric, 2010. "Trial and settlement negotiations between asymmetrically skilled parties," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 18-27, March.
    2. Éric Langlais, 2008. "Indemnisation des préjudices et fréquence des procès en présence d'une asymétrie d'information sur l'aversion au risque des parties," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 74(2), pages 191-218.
    3. Dari-Mattiacci, Giuseppe & Saraceno, Margherita, 2020. "Fee shifting and accuracy in adjudication," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    4. McAfee, R. Preston & Mialon, Hugo M. & Mialon, Sue H., 2008. "Private v. public antitrust enforcement: A strategic analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(10-11), pages 1863-1875, October.
    5. Beckner, Clinton III & Katz, Avery, 1995. "The incentive effects of litigation fee shifting when legal standards are uncertain," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 205-224, June.
    6. Kaplow, Louis, 2017. "Optimal design of private litigation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 64-73.
    7. Osborne, Evan, 1999. "Who should be worried about asymmetric information in litigation?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 399-409, September.
    8. Lanjouw, Jenny & Schankerman, Mark, 1998. "Patent Suits: Do They Distort Research Incentives?," CEPR Discussion Papers 2042, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Jean O. Lanjouw & Mark Schankerman, 1997. "Stylized Facts of Patent Litigation: Value, Scope and Ownership," NBER Working Papers 6297, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Kathryn Zeiler, "undated". "Medical Malpractice and Contract Disclosure: An Equilibrium Model of the Effects of Legal Rules on Behavior in Health Care Markets," American Law & Economics Association Annual Meetings 1071, American Law & Economics Association.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kaplow, Louis, 2017. "Optimal design of private litigation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 64-73.
    2. Sophie Bienenstock, 2019. "The Deterrent Effect of French Liability Law: the Example of Abusive Contract Terms," Post-Print hal-03222207, HAL.
    3. G.G.A. de Geest & G. Dari Mattiacci & J.J. Siegers, 2004. "The Intrinsic Inferiority of Efficiency Wages to Damages and Conditional Bonuses," Working Papers 04-15, Utrecht School of Economics.
    4. Echazu, Luciana & Garoupa, Nuno, 2012. "Why not adopt a loser-pays-all rule in criminal litigation?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 233-241.
    5. Albert Choi & Chris William Sanchirico, 2004. "Should Plaintiffs Win What Defendants Lose? Litigation Stakes, Litigation Effort, and the Benefits of Decoupling," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(2), pages 323-354, June.
    6. Chopard, Bertrand & Cortade, Thomas & Langlais, Eric, 2010. "Trial and settlement negotiations between asymmetrically skilled parties," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 18-27, March.
    7. Campos, Sergio J. & Cotton, Christopher S. & Li, Cheng, 2015. "Deterrence effects under Twombly: On the costs of increasing pleading standards in litigation," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 61-71.
    8. Sophie Bienenstock, 2019. "The Deterrent Effect of French Liability Law: the Example of Abusive Contract Terms," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-03222207, HAL.
    9. Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci, 2009. "Negative Liability," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(1), pages 21-59, January.
    10. Schantl, Stefan F. & Wagenhofer, Alfred, 2020. "Deterrence of financial misreporting when public and private enforcement strategically interact," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1).
    11. D’Antoni, Massimo & Tabbach, Avraham D., 2014. "Inadequate compensation and multiple equilibria," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 33-47.
    12. Rasmusen, Eric, 1995. "How optimal penalties change with the amount of harm," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 101-108, January.
    13. Thomas J. Miceli, 2014. "Economic Models of Law," Working papers 2014-13, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    14. Chu, C.Y. Cyrus & Chien, Hung-Ken, 2007. "Asymmetric information, pretrial negotiation and optimal decoupling," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 312-329, September.
    15. Clements, Matthew T., 2003. "Precautionary incentives for privately informed victims," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 237-251, September.
    16. Jesse Bull, 2009. "Costly Evidence And Systems Of Fact‐Finding," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 103-125, April.
    17. Dennis L. Gärtner, 2022. "Corporate Leniency in a Dynamic World: The Preemptive Push of an Uncertain Future," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(1), pages 119-146, March.
    18. Deborah A. Cobb-Clark & Chris Ryan & Ana Sartbayeva, 2009. "Taking Chances: The Effect of Growing Up on Welfare on the Risky Behaviour of Young People," CEPR Discussion Papers 604, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    19. J. K. Pappalardo, 2022. "Economics of Consumer Protection: Contributions and Challenges in Estimating Consumer Injury and Evaluating Consumer Protection Policy," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 201-238, June.
    20. M. Martin Boyer, 2007. "Resistance (to Fraud) Is Futile," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 74(2), pages 461-492, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K41 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Litigation Process

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rje:randje:v:24:y:1993:i:winter:p:625-630. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.rje.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.