DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE AND CHARITY IN TORT LAW ADJUDICATION¹

A common claim in tort scholarship has been to argue that, generally, there is no place for distributive justice or charity considerations in tort law. This article discusses this claim. It is first shown that the thesis according to which there is no place for distributive justice considerations in tort law is doubtful. It is then argued that tort adjudication is a form of distributive justice, utilizing the framework of tort adjudication as a means of distributing justice between the parties. And finally, the example of the reduction of damages rule (art. 10:401 PETL) will be analyzed as an illustration of the thesis about tort adjudication.