Book Review: Modern Damages

Abstract

MELVIN BELLI blushingly styles himself The King of Torts, and so he is or at least of the great province of that noble discipline which is concerned with sudden death and maiming, "of most disastrous chances, of moving accidents by flood and field." Not for him such quaint, esoteric torts as the wanton, reckless and wilful promulgation of an Accountitng Research Bulletin on declining-balance depreciation. But within the field of personal injury, which probably accounts for the bulk of tort litigation, Mr. Belli can fairly claim to be the reigning monarch. His verdicts are the highest. and so, presumably, are his fees; his publications, are the most voluminous; and, it may be added, his publicity is the most flamboyant, in a field whose leading practitioners are rarely shrinking violets.