Tuesday, February 23, 2016 - 4:10pm to 5:45pm
Location: 
Solarium (room FA2) Falconer Hall - 84 Queen's Park

LAW & ECONOMICS WORKSHOP SERIES

presents

Valerie Hans
Cornell Law School

From Meaning to Money: Translating Injury into Dollars

Tuesday, February 23, 2016
4:10 - 5:45
Solarium (Room FA2), Falconer Hall
84 Queen's Park

Legal systems often require the translation of qualitative assessments into quantitative judgments. Crimes evoke punitive reactions, but defendants who commit them are sentenced in months and years. Injuries may be mild or horrific but damage award compensation is in dollars. Cost/benefit analysis underlies many areas of regulation, and is even required in some instances. Although the conversion of qualitative to quantitative judgments is central to many legal decisions, it is a challenging yet understudied process. Valerie Hans will describe a new collaborative research project designed to examine how people engage in the translation process in civil tort cases, where they are asked to award money damages for personal injuries.  

Valerie Hans conducts empirical studies of law and the courts, and is one of the nation's leading authorities on the jury system. Trained as a social scientist, she has carried out extensive research and lectured around the globe on juries and jury reforms as well as the uses of social science in law.   She is the author or editor of 8 books and over 100 research articles. Current projects on the American jury include developing a new theory of damage awards, analyzing how jury service promotes civic engagement, examining the impact of race in tort decisions, and researching the jury’s role in death penalty cases. Professor Hans is also studying the introduction of juries and other forms of citizen participation in other countries, including Argentina, Japan, Korea, Russia, Spain, and Taiwan. Her books include Business on Trial: The Civil Jury and Corporate Responsibility (2000); The Jury System: Contemporary Scholarship (2006); and three coauthored books: Judging the Jury (1986); American Juries: The Verdict (2007); and The Psychology of Tort Law (forthcoming). 

 

For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca.