Lawyers, Lawsuits, and Legal Rights: The Battle over Litigation in American Society: 2 (California Series in Law, Politics, and Society) - Hardcover

"Burke drills deep into America's unique culture of litigation and is rewarded with a powerful insight: it is not the public or even lawyers that are so darn litigious, but American law itself. This meticulous, dispassionate book stands not only to advance the debate but-I hope-to reshape it."-Jonathan Rauch, author of Government's End: Why Washington Stopped Working "Burke's authoritative book explains how the highly litigious American system is not an isolated anomaly but in fact fits in with deeply-rooted elements of American political culture. Where citizens of other countries rely on expert or bureaucratic judgment to resolve disputes, Americans turn to the courts. Equally novel and compelling, Lawyers, Lawsuits, and Legal Rights marshals an impressive set of evidence and delivers a refreshingly well-written look at the state of American litigation."-Frank R. Baumgartner, co-author of Agendas and Instability in American Politics

Lawsuits over coffee burns, playground injuries, even bad teaching: litigation 'horror stories' create the impression that Americans are greedy, quarrelsome, and sue-happy. The truth, as this book makes clear, is quite different. What Thomas Burke describes in "Lawyers, Lawsuits, and Legal Rights" is a nation not of litigious citizens, but of litigious policies - laws that promote the use of litigation in resolving disputes and implementing public policies. This book is a cogent account of how such policies have come to shape public life and everyday practices in the United States. As litigious policies have proliferated, so have struggles to limit litigation - and these struggles offer insight into the nation's court-centered public policy style. Burke focuses on three cases: the effort to block the Americans with Disabilities Act; an attempt to reduce accident litigation by creating a no-fault auto insurance system in California; and the enactment of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Act. These cases suggest that litigious policies are deeply rooted in the American constitutional tradition. Burke shows how the diffuse, divided structure of American government, together with the anti-statist ethos of American political culture, creates incentives for political actors to use the courts to address their concerns. The first clear and comprehensive account of the national politics of litigation, his work provides a new way to understand and address the 'litigiousness' of American society.