Experience or Reason: The Tort Theories of Holmes and Doe

Oliver Wendell Holmes is credited with awakening the American bar to the utility of tort theory. The author here emphasizes the contributions to tort theory made by a Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court, Charles Cogswell Doe, during the latter half of the nineteenth century and compares and contrasts the tort theories of Holmes and Doe through analysis of the judicial opinions and other writings of each man.