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Abstract
The capacious and hard-to-confine term Tort challenges observers to identify what it includes and does not include. Offered here to describe tort, the label “categorical hurt” makes reference to two foundational characteristics. “Hurt,” the noun in this phrase, insists that tort plaintiffs bring to court their experience of suffering. Its adjective, used in this article to echo the word Immanuel Kant chose to modify a different noun, “imperative,” means that tort courts hear claims of general rather than exclusively personal interest. To earn a tort remedy, the suffering reported by a hurt plaintiff must be of a kind that other people can experience and understand.
Keywords: hurt; categorical; civil recourse; injury; feeling; pain; Kant; Posner; common law; bill of attainder
Published Online: 2021-11-30
Published in Print: 2021-10-26
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
