A few state supreme courts can trigger rapid nationwide doctrinal convergence.

Evidence

Once the New Jersey and California supreme courts pioneered these changes, other state appellate courts quickly followed their lead. Within a decade and a half, more than two-thirds of the states had embraced strict liability and eliminated the requirement of privity of contract. As Lawrence Baum and Bradley Canon put it, “Never before had such a momentous change in tort law swept the American states so rapidly.” — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 3450

Categorization

• XREF: Directly supports the book’s broader thesis on state courts as policy entrepreneurs and the diffusion of legal innovation across states.