George C. Christie

The Model of Principles

H.L.A. Harts work has dominated much of current jurisprudential__ discussion. In a recent article evaluating Harts conclusion that the law consists of sets of rules in the application of which judges often have a large measure of discretion, Professor Dworkin of Yale concluded that judges do not in fact possess any such discretion because the judicial application of legal rules is controlled by what he calls legal principles. The author takes exception with Dworkins conclusions and attacks the analytical framework of rules and principles upon which it is based.

The Defense of Necessity Considered from the Legal and Moral Points of View

Questions concerning the scope of the defense of necessity frequently arise in a variety of legal and philosophical discussions. This article grapples with questions raised by this defense: When can property be taken or destroyed to save human life? Must compensation always be paid? Can one destroy the property of others to save ones own property? Can one kill an innocent person to save the lives of a greater number of people? The submission of the article is that much of the discussion of these difficult questions is too abstract and based on too cursory a review of the few legal authorities on the subject. It explores the authorities in depth, and concludes, among other things, that someone who destroys property to save human life is not generally required to pay compensation for the property destroyed, and that private individuals can never use the defense of necessity, even when multiple human lives are threatened, to justify intentionally taking innocent human life.

Current Trends in the American Law of Punitive Damages

Over the past fifteen years few legal questions have generated as much emotional reaction as those relating to the propriety of awarding punitive damages and the method (or lack of method) used in determining the amount of punitive damages to be awarded in particular cases. To many members of the general public, the awarding of punitive damages in tort is the most graphic foundation of the belief that something has gone wrong with the American legal system, that the operation of the American tort system over the past few decades has led to the stifling of technological innovation and to the loss of Americas international competitiveness. Perhaps the most sensational of the cases giving rise to this public perception is Grimshaw Y•Ford Motor Co. I in which the jury awarded one of the plaintiffs

On the Moral Obligation to Obey the Law

2,841,000 in compensatory damages and

The Notion of an Ideal Audience as an Analytical Tool

125,000,000 in punitive damages. As a condition for denying Fords motion for a new trial, the trial court required Grimshaw to accept a reduction in theaward of punitive damages to

Choosing between Competing Visions of the Good—the Case of Necessity

3,500,000, and the trial courts disposition of the case was affirmed on appeal. More recently, in Browning-Ferris Industries of Vt., Inc. Y. Kelco Disposal,lnc,,2 a case that shall be discussed at greater length later in this article, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld against certain types of constitutional attack a judgment entered on a jury verdict awarding compensatory damages of

Ambivalent Attitudes with Regard to Discretion

51,146and

The Conflict Between the General and the Particular—Theoretical Perspectives

6,000,OOOinpunitivedamages.Withsumsliketheseinquestion, it is no wonder that the question of the awarding of punitive damages in tort cases has captured the attention of many non-lawyers. This article will discuss the major developments in the law concerning punitive damages over the last few years.

Some Universal Features of Ideal Audiences in Legal Contexts

The principal arguments used by skeptics to establish that there is no general moral obligation to obey the law-not even a prima facie obligation--can also be used to establish that there is no general moral obligation to obey any particular moral norm. Perhaps no such general moral obligations exist-a conclusion I personally am not presently prepared to accept-but this conclusion is not what the skeptics think that they have shown. Indeed, these individuals believe that there are general moral obligations. Their point rather is that, unlike our general moral obligation to obey particular moral norms, we have no such obligation with regard to legal norms, not even a prima facie obligation. I state my thesis starkly, in order to focus the mind of the reader, because it will be necessary to discuss a number of preliminary matters before I can directly address my principal contention. These preliminary matters are sufficiently important to require more attention than would be necessary if their only significance were their contribution to my central thesis.

What are the Constraints That can be Imposed on Arguments Addressed to an Ideal Audience

There is a passage towards the end of the monumental Treatise of Human Nature, in which Hume addressed himself to the question of how good government and human progress are at all possible. Hume started from two important premises: first, that men were naturally endowed with only limited altruism; and second, that they had a natural tendency to prefer short-run advantages, even at the expense of what was in their long-term interest. Given these assumptions, how was the material and social betterment of the human condition possible? To answer that question in the affirmative, Hume resorted to an ingenious expedient. He suggested that an affirmative answer was possible because in a well-functioning society, such as the Great Britain of his day, one could create a class of leaders and load them down with economic and social advantages, thereby creating a ruling class which had a short-term interest in maintaining the stability and proper functioning of society. Moreover, through this arrangement, one could do more than maintain the status quo. In Hume’s own words: But government extends farther its beneficial influence; and not contented to protect men in those conventions they make for their mutual interest, it often obliges them to make such conventions, and forces them to seek their own advantage, by a concurrence in some common end or purpose. There is no quality in human nature, which causes more fatal errors in our conduct, than that which leads us to prefer whatever is present to the distant and remote, and makes us desire objects more according to their situation than their intrinsic value. Two neighbors may agree to drain a meadow, which they possess in common; because ‘tis easy for them to know each others mind; and each must perceive, that the immediate consequence of his failing in his part, is the abandoning the whole project. But ‘tis very difficult, and indeed impossible, that a thousand persons shou’d agree in any such action; it being difficult for them to concert so complicated a design and still more difficult for them to execute it; while each seeks a pretext to free himself of the trouble and expence, and wou’d lay the whole burden on others. Political society easily remedies both these inconveniences. Magistrates find an immediate interest in the interest of any considerable part of their subjects. They need consult no body but themselves to form any scheme for the promoting of that interest. And as the failure of any one piece in the execution is connected, tho’ not immediately, with the failure of the whole, they prevent that failure, because they find no interest in it, either immediate or remote. Thus bridges are built; harbours open’d; ramparts rais’d; canals form’d; fleets equip’d; and armies disciplin’d; every where, by the care of the government, which, tho’ compos’d of men subject to all human infirmities, becomes, by one of the finest and most subtle inventions imaginable, a composition, which is, in some measure, exempted from all these infirmities.1