Document Type
Book Review
Publication Date
9-1995
ISSN
0022-2208
Publisher
Association of American Law Schools
Language
en-US
Abstract
The most interesting issues in the field of constitutional torts, involving the legal and moral bases for the government's responsibility for injuries it causes, are the most difficult ones for lawyers to explore. The question whether, as a moral or social policy matter, governments and government officials should enjoy immunities or other defenses not available to private individuals is rarely confronted directly in judicial opinions or in scholarship on constitutional torts, yet it lurks behind many of the doctrinal issues that come up in constitutional tort litigation.1 A slight scratch on the surface of doctrines as disparate as official immunities, the role of state remedies in procedural due process, the status of agencies and officials as “persons,” the appropriate circumstances for Bivens actions,2 and the liability of municipalities for the constitutional torts of government officials reveals a murky history of sovereign immunity and related doctrines and an inarticulate sense that holding government responsible for all of its tortious conduct might be both morally necessary and economically disastrous.
Recommended Citation
Jack M. Beermann,
Review of "Constitutional Torts" by Sheldon H. Nahmod, Michael L. Wells, Thomas A. Eaton
,
in
45
Journal of Legal Education
457
(1995).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/1872
Included in
Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons, Legal Profession Commons, Legal Writing and Research Commons, Torts Commons
