Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

2-29-2004

SSRN Discipline

*Humanities - Forthcoming Areas; LSN Subject Matter eJournals; History; HIST Subject Matter eJournals; Legal Scholarship Network; PRN Subject Matter eJournals; Philosophy Research Network; Law School Research Papers - Legal Studies; African-American Studies; AFAM Subject Matter eJournals; Law School Research Papers - Public Law & Legal Theory; Humanities Network; Political Science Network

Abstract

There are two ways of viewing tort law in the debate over reparations for racial crimes First and most commonly tort law is seen as a way of providing relief through courts So Reparations Talk begins by exploring the requirements for lawsuits for reparations for slavery and for the Jim Crow era It suggests some instances where lawsuits might be appropriate such as riots lynchings and segregated libraries and limited cases involving slavery Tort doctrine also offers however a way of framing discussions of moral culpability Reparations Talk thus moves beyond lawsuits to discuss some ways that tort law and unjust enrichment doctrine might be used to think about issues in reparations such as how should claims by descendants of slaves be evaluated How do we treat issues of causation across generations It suggests several damages formulas as starting points for contemplating legislative reparations Reparations talk concludes that although it may be difficult to compute the exact amount of harm or to figure out where current generations would be without the crimes of slavery and Jim Crow that discussion of reparations may benefit from the clarity that contemporary legal doctrine can bring to the subject even as we struggle to define the precise goals of reparations

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