Proposals for tort reform often amount to choices about which societal institution- the torts system, the criminal-regulatory system, or the market-should be responsible for preventing particular types of injuries, Examining tort reform and tort theory from this institutional perspective, Professor Komesar offers an analytical framework for evaluating approaches to injury prevention. His framework focuses on four groups of actors involved in injuries--potential injurers potential victims actual injurers, and actual victims-and charts the relative impact of various injury settings on the members of each group. This relative impact framework allows Professor Komesar to analyze the likelihood, in a given injury setting, that various actors will sue, prosecute, lobby, transact, or be deterred Showing that this analysis can help determine which institutional alternative will result in optimal prevention of given injuries he uses his framework to evaluate various tort reform proposals, including no-fault systems, scheduled damages, strict liability, and the elimination of nonpecuniary damages, punitive damages, or joint and several liability
