Widespread small fraud escapes private enforcement when no single victim suffers enough harm
Evidence
The legislators pointed out in 1906 that many manufacturers were selling fraudulent goods which in the aggregate was quite serious, but hurt no one person in an amount sufficient to justify suit. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 1077
Categorization
- XREF: Connects directly to the collective-action / dispersed-harm problem in remedies: the aggregate-serious-but-individually-negligible pattern recurs across consumer protection and environmental harm across the four-course polyad. — connects to: Permanent-exclusion licensing sanctions are so powerful they are rarely invoked, weakening their deterrent value — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 1099; Regulatory crimes emerged to solve diffuse-harm enforcement problems no private litigant would pursue. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 1736; Corporations escape criminal liability because wrongdoing is framed as agentless (+3 more)
- ADDENDUM: Parallels the Osage-orange/collective-good logic from the trees article and the dispersed-harm analysis at the heart of the environmental-justice thread.
Broader Connections
- Regulatory crimes emerged to solve diffuse-harm enforcement problems no private litigant would pursue.
#corroborates(0.95) — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 1736 - Spread of harm across unknown readers weakens perpetrator self-sanctions
#expands(0.78) - Corporations escape criminal liability because wrongdoing is framed as agentless
#complicates(0.75) - Private enforcement can perversely suppress self-policing among market participants.
#qualifies(0.72)