Douglas Laycock Named Reporter for New Look at Tort Remedies

Professor Douglas Laycock of the University of Virginia School of Law, one of the nation’s leading experts on the law of remedies, will serve as a reporter with the American Law Institute’s new restatement project on torts.

Laycock will examine how torts — negligent or intentional violations of legal duties that injure others — have been compensated or prevented since the last time the ALI took a close look. His work, along with that of several other reporters, will complete the ALI’s third restatement on the subject.

Restatements are authoritative and influential reference books on judicial decision-making and legal practice. While not carrying the same weight as statutes and legal precedents, restatements often inform judicial decisions and are compiled by prominent legal scholars working under the ALI’s elaborate processes for collective review of every draft.

“I hope to bring the treatment of tort remedies up to date substantively, addressing the many new developments in the past 40 years,” Laycock said.

He will review the law to identify types of recoverable damages — such as past and future lost wages, medical expenses, disfigurement, pain and suffering, and property damage — and how they’ve been measured.

The ALI announced the new restatement on Monday. The first project drafts are expected in 2020.

Laycock has testified frequently before Congress and has argued many cases in the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, where he has served as lead counsel in six cases and filed many amicus briefs. He is author of the leading casebook “Modern American Remedies,” the award-winning monograph “The Death of the Irreparable Injury Rule,” and many articles in leading law reviews. He recently published the final three books of a five-volume collection of his scholarship on religious liberty.

Laycock is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In accordance with ALI rules, he will resign as vice president of the ALI and from its council to become a reporter. He will continue as an emeritus member of the council.