A Psychological Perspective on the Settlement of Mass Tort Claims

Abstract

The motives for the development of mass tort claims resolution facilities are laudatory. The speakers at the conference that preceded the publication of this issue of Law and ContemporaryProblems noted the desire to settle claims quickly and fairly, and to increase the amount of awards by decreasing litigation costs. Although these motives seem strongly pro-client, it is striking that the injured parties themselves are not represented in this symposium, either directly or indirectly. They are not represented directly in that the authors are all attorneys who deal with mass torts. They are not represented indirectly in that no systematic evidence about the views of the injured parties themselves is introduced. Hence, we do not know what the injured parties want from the legal system, how they feel about traditional methods of handling their claims, and how they evaluate the new facilities that have been developed to deal with their grievances.