ABSTRACT
Richard Posner expanded the application of the economic framework far beyond the realm of auto accidents— Guido Calabresi’s subject—to all of law, most importantly to all of private law—torts, contracts, and property—and demonstrated the importance of economic analysis to public law topics as well. Richard A. Posner was brilliant throughout his education. He attended Yale College and was an English major. He was chosen as a Scholar of the House, an honor given to ten students, granting them the senior year without classes to write an extensive dissertation. In many areas, state and federal legislatures had preempted common-law rules of negligence. This was true generally with the acceptance by courts that an accident occurring in the context of a violation of a statute constituted negligence per se. Economic Analysis of Law was widely reviewed, and by many prominent academics, but his efficiency theory of the common law generated substantial criticism.
