Modernizing the Critique of Per Diem Pain and Suffering Damages

Outside the legal academy, the debate over tort reform rages on. In the political arena, advocates on both sides of the aisle often use empty rhetoric in an attempt to persuade voters that tort reform as a whole is “good” or “bad.” Of course, this over-simplistic view of tort reform does not take into account the multifaceted nature of tort law. This Note examines one method of calculating noneconomic damages and attempts to provide a theoretical justification for why a plaintiff’s use of the per diem (or time-unit) method to compute future pain and suffering damages cannot be justified under any reasonable theory. The debate over the per diem method to calculate these damages has largely stagnated in the past forty years. During this same time period, nothing less than a revolution has occurred in the understanding of pain and pain management therapy in medical and psychological fields. However, these advances have not been incorporated into the per diem discussion. This Note analyzes and introduces the “cognitive-behavioral treatment” (CBT) model of pain to the legal literature with the hope of supplying a theoretical foundation for why the per diem argument should be impermissible in the many jurisdictions that allow such a method. The basic flaw of the time-unit perspective is that it improperly assumes a constant dollar unit for future pain and suffering without discounting for either future advances in pain management therapy or an individual’s future and likely ability to psychologically and physically cope with chronic pain. 

Rule-Based Dispute Resolution in International Law

This Essay examines why the United States government demanded a more rule-based dispute settlement system in the World Trade Organization (“WTO”). American support for a trade court limiting its international bargaining power is puzzling, particularly given the United States’ general resistance to international courts and obvious advantage in a negotiation-based system. Access to the United States’ market is one of the primary benefits of membership in the WTO and, by limiting access to its market, the United States can resolve trading disputes on favorable terms. Why would the United States give up this flexibility in favor of a strong international court?

This Essay addresses both the puzzle of the United States’ preference for rule-based dispute resolution and the broader implications for international law. It argues that the WTO system strengthens the President’s hand in trade policy negotiations with Congress. The United States’ preference – or more specifically, the President’s preference – for a rule-based system derives, in part, from the President’s efforts to gain greater control over trade policy at the national level. A trade court imposes an international constraint that actually increases the President’s power over lawmaking at home. The Essay then turns to the broader implications for international law. It shows how domestic actors, such as the President, may use international law to try to change domestic politics. International law influences state interests by shifting bargaining power among different players within the government and thereby changing the outcome of domestic politics.

Chevron Step Zero

The most famous case in administrative law, Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., has come to be seen as a counter-Marbury, or even a McCulloch v. Maryland, for the administrative state. But in the last period, new debates have broken out over Chevron Step Zero — the initial inquiry into whether Chevron applies at all. These debates are the contemporary location of a longstanding dispute between Justice Scalia and Justice Breyer over whether Chevron is a revolutionary decision, establishing an across-the-board rule, or instead a mere synthesis of preexisting law, inviting a case-by-case inquiry into congressional instructions on the deference question. In the last decade, Justice Breyer’s case-by-case view has enjoyed significant victories. Two trilogies of cases — one explicitly directed to the Step Zero question, another implicitly so directed — suggest that the Chevron framework may not apply (a) to agency decisions not preceded by formal procedures and (b) to agency decisions that involve large-scale questions about agency authority. Both of these trilogies threaten to unsettle the Chevron framework, and to do so in a way that produces unnecessary complexity for judicial review and damaging results for regulatory law. These problems can be reduced through two steps. First, courts should adopt a broader understanding of Chevron’s scope. Second, courts should acknowledge that the argument for Chevron deference is strengthened, not weakened, when major questions of statutory structure are involved.