Tort Litigation for the Public's Health

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511761881.008

7 - Tort Litigation for the Public's Health

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 December 2010

Elizabeth Weeks Leonard

Edited by

John G. Culhane

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John G. Culhane: Affiliation:
Health Law Institute, Widener University, School of Law

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

The principal objective of public health is to promote and protect the health of populations. The focus is on the common good of society rather than individual health or welfare. Public health law is the infrastructure by which government can compel, prohibit, track, regulate, incentivize, or otherwise seek to ensure that the health of the population as a whole is optimized. There is an inevitable tension in public health law between the common good and the rights and desires of individuals. Quarantine laws, for example, prevent the spread of infectious diseases and protect the health of society by severely restricting an infected individual's freedom of movement. That “victim” whose rights are infringed generally does not receive individual compensation for the intrusion in his rights. He, in effect, “takes a hit for the team.”

The focus of tort law, by contrast, is resolving private disputes between one or more individuals in society by awarding compensatory damages. A tort begins with an injury, or harm, and the question in every case is whether the injured victim should bear the loss oneself, or whether another person, typically the person who brought about the harm, should bear the loss. Tort law offers a set of rules, approaches, and rationales by which government – specifically courts – can require one person to pay a sum of money to another person, with the award representing the value of the injury.

Type: Chapter
Information: Reconsidering Law and Policy Debates
A Public Health Perspective
, pp. 187 - 220

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511761881.008 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2010

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