The negligence-versus–strict liability debate is over in tort law, and negligence has clearly won. Yet the fact that our accident-compensation system is fault based continues to attract much opposition in popular sentiment and academic circles. Standard economic analysis views strict liability as preferable to negligence because it is easier to administer and leads to better risk reduction: strict liability induces injurers not only to optimally invest in precaution but also to optimally adjust their activity levels. Standard analysis thus views the prevalence of negligence as unjustifiable on efficiency grounds. This Article challenges the conventional wisdom and clarifies an efficiency rationale for negligence by spotlighting the information-production function of tort law. Tort litigation affects behavior not just directly through imposing sanctions but also indirectly through producing information on how the disputants behaved. Third parties can then use information from litigation to decide whether to avoid the defendant or not. And the choice of liability rules dictates the magnitude and scope of these informational effects: negligence produces more valuable information on the behavior of market actors than strict liability does.

Litigation under negligence produces granular information on whether the defendant could have reasonably avoided the harm, how she fares relative to others in her profession, and so on. Such information, to the extent it becomes public, allows outside observers to infer whether the past accident is indicative of the defendant’s future behavior or not, which in turn affects their willingness to do business with her going forward. A physician found negligent may lose future patients, a seller failing the consumer-expectations test in products liability may lose future consumers, and so on. Litigation under strict liability produces much coarser information— namely, that a harm occurred as a result of the defendant’s activity. It rarely provides outside observers with information on the competence or integrity of the defendant vis-à-vis her peers. The efficiency rationale for negligence thus stems from facilitating more robust market discipline. In contrast to what influential accounts in economic analysis suggest, negligence does affect the activity levels of potential injurers, albeit from the demand side: by warning third parties, it reduces market demand for the services of risky actors.

过失与严格责任的争论在侵权法中已经结束，过失显然已经获胜。然而，我们的事故赔偿制度是基于过错的，这一事实继续在舆论和学术界引起很多反对。标准经济分析认为严格责任优于疏忽，因为它更易于管理并能更好地降低风险：严格责任促使加害者不仅对预防措施进行最佳投资，而且对他们的活动水平进行最佳调整。因此，标准分析认为，从效率的角度来看，疏忽的普遍存在是不合理的。本文通过强调侵权法的信息生产功能，挑战了传统智慧并阐明了过失的效率原理。侵权诉讼不仅通过实施制裁直接影响行为，而且通过提供有关争议者行为方式的信息间接影响行为。然后，第三方可以使用来自诉讼的信息来决定是否回避被告。责任规则的选择决定了这些信息效应的大小和范围：与严格责任相比，疏忽会产生更多关于市场参与者行为的有价值的信息。

过失诉讼会产生关于被告是否可以合理避免伤害、她相对于其他人的职业生涯等方面的详细信息。此类信息一旦公开，就可以让外部观察者推断过去的事故是否预示着被告未来的行为，这反过来又会影响他们未来与她做生意的意愿。被发现疏忽的医生可能会失去未来的患者，未能通过产品责任的消费者期望测试的卖家可能会失去未来的消费者，等等。严格责任下的诉讼会产生更粗略的信息——即，损害是由于被告的活动而发生的。它很少向外部观察者提供有关被告相对于同龄人的能力或诚信的信息。因此，疏忽的效率理由源于促进更健全的市场纪律。与经济分析中的有影响力的账户所表明的相反，疏忽确实会影响潜在伤害者的活动水平，尽管是从需求方面：通过警告第三方，它减少了市场对风险参与者服务的需求。