BLENDING U.S. CRIMINAL AND TORT LAW FOR CIVIL PUNISHMENT
BLENDING U.S. CRIMINAL AND TORT LAW FOR CIVIL PUNISHMENT

Summary/Abstract: Civil actions that concurrently fulfill the private function of compensating injured claimants while serving the broader public purpose of controlling socially harmful behavior are labeled “crimtorts” because these legal hybrids blend the principles of criminal law and the law of torts. The crimtort paradigm explicitly recognizes that punitive damages litigation can advance societal interests through civil punishment and deterrence in cases that are beyond the criminal law. The fervent “tort reform” dispute over procedural fairness in punitive damages litigation is part of a much larger theoretical dispute over the legitimacy of the crimtort as a mechanism that uses private tort remedies for a public purpose.

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