Puzzles for Programmers and Pros

3.2. Legal Logic

In my last year of college, I briefly flirted with the idea of going to law school. The reasoning seemed kind of fun. Lots of people (some might say too many) were doing it. But I chose technology, deciding that for the most part lawyers divide an existing wealth pie and take a slice for themselves: a zero sum game for society. A career in technology promised the possibility of increasing the size of the pie. Of course, my analysis was simplistic, but I still think fundamentally correct. Technology opens new worlds. Legal reasoning retreads paths that the Mesopotamians blazed more than 4,000 years ago. Still, my career has since brought me in close contact with very smart lawyers. I have seen how they argue and how their arguments affect society. I offer you a small axiomatization of what I think is going on and then propose a modest reform.

Suppose there is a new device (or drug) D aimed at sickness S. Legal logic plays with the following predicates:

mayuse(x, D)—Person x may use device D (i.e., D is available).

hurtby(x, D)—Person x has been hurt by device D.

newdevice(D)—Device D is new.

sick(x,S)—Person x is sick with sickness S.

sueandwin(x)—Person x sues someone with a good probability of winning.

This is first order predicate logic so:

"ThereExists x such that ..." means at least one person x has the property represented by the ellipses.

"ForAll x ..." means that all people have the property represented by the ellipses.

A→B means that if A holds, then B must ...