Abstract
The litigation explosion cannot simply be explained from a legal or judicial point of view. It cannot be traced, as legal critics so often do, exclusively to features of the American judicial system that encourage the filing of lawsuits, nor can it be attributed simply to the number of lawyers or to the all-encompassing American belief in individual rights. The litigation explosion has, more broadly, arisen from the kind of culture and society that America has become in the late 20th century.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Michael Corin, “Quantifying America’s Decline,” Wall Street Journal (March 15, 1993), p. 15A.
The speech was printed in the New York Times (September 10, 1994), p. 9A.
Christine Gorman, “Dollars for Deeds,” Time (May 16, 1993): 51.
Felicia Cowlings, “What is the Main Problem Facing the Country Today?” Time (February 7, 1994): 52.
William Bennett, The Book of Virtues (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993).
Christopher Lasch, The Revolt of the Elites: And the Betrayal of Democracy (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994).
James Lincoln Collier, The Rise of Selfishness in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994),
James Q. Wilson, The Moral Sense (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), p. 61.
Gertrude Himmelfarb, The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Virtues (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995).
Ichiro Ozawa, Blueprint for a Neu? Japan (New York: Kodansha International, 1993), p. 31.
Andrew Pollack, “How Japan Hews to Tradition of Lifetime Jobs,” New York Times (April 26, 1993), p. 1A.
Andrew Pollack, “Japan’s Schools: Orderly and Crime-Free,” New York Times (July 18, 1995), p. 1A.
Andrew Pollack, “Japan Says No to Crime,” New York Times (May 14, 1995), p. A4.
Noda Yoshiyuki, Introduction to Japanese Law (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1976), p. 21.
Ibid., p. 23.
Ibid., p. 24.
Edward Felsenthal, “Are Civil Rights Laws Being Interpreted Too Broadly?” Wall Street Journal (June 10, 1996), p. B1.
Ibid.
Robert D. Putnam, “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capitol,” Journal of Democracy 6 (1), 1995: 73.
These statistics are taken from Putnam, “Bowling Alone,” pp. 67–69.
Ibid.
This mind-set is also discussed in Philip K. Howard, The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America (New York: Random House, 1994).
Carlin Romano, “Down By Laws,” The New Yorker (March 13, 1995), p. 104.
Robert Nagel, “Let’s Kill All the Lawyers,” Washington Monthly (January 1995): 46.
Michael Wines, “First Lady Makes a Pitch for Health Bill,” New York Times (July 22, 1994), p. 1A.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Garry, P.M. (1997). Cultural Foundations of America’s Litigation Explosion. In: A Nation of Adversaries. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-6604-9_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-6604-9_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-0-306-45564-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-6604-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive