ABSTRACT
The most far-reaching of the statutory schemes is workers' compensation, which annually pays more money to injury victims than do judgments in tort suits. There are many ways that society has provided for compensation of victims of injuries. The basic rationales for workers' compensation laws include a combination of social justice and the economics-based belief that industry should internalize the costs of workers injured on the job. Workers' compensation itself has been under attack from both sides. When people have to go to court to recover for traffic injuries, they may be subject to long delays in receiving compensation if they receive it at all. Some models have been advanced for no-fault compensation systems for medical accidents. A very different kind of event, with catastrophic economic consequences but much less direct loss of life, was the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, which led to a specialized compensation plan and a varied menu of compensation litigations.
