Armchair Empiricists (Part Two)
Previously I explained the California court's decision in the case where a batter sued the pitcher for intentionally hitting the batter in the head. The court held that the batter "assumed the risk" of being struck by a pitched ball, even intentionally. The interesting question is whether or not the court was right.
The usual approach to questions of this type is for a court to wonder whether or not people in this situation (batting in a baseball game) reasonably "expect" beanball pitches. This is a factual, empirical question, and the court's answer to this question was derived from anecdote: the court's opinion recites various instances of beanballs and statements concerning beanballs and concludes that beanballs are within the common expectation of batters. At best, this form of offhand empiricism is a poor substitute for the real thing. Do batters truly expect beanballs? Should someone sample them for their opinion? If so, what degree of a shared opinion would suffice for a court to decide that beanballs are in fact "normally expected"?
Grand empirical pronouncements based on anecdote, if based on anything at all, permeate legal decisions. I don't think courts actually care about the true empirical answer: in other words, even if some enterprising social scientist were to present a court with convincing evidence that batters do not to any significant degree expect a pitcher to throw at them intentionally, I don't think the California court would change its decision. Maybe its reasoning, but not its decision. Courts do not really care what actual people actually expect. Indeed, now that this decision has been handed down, as a matter of law, at least in California, the intentional beanball is within the field of risks that batters assume.
Courts don't care about these empirical questions they pose, and I'll argue next that they shouldn't care. The purpose of legal decisions is not to describe reality; there is a large prescriptive component, one that aims to shape reality as much as describe it. We'll see how the court prescribes "baseball."
The usual approach to questions of this type is for a court to wonder whether or not people in this situation (batting in a baseball game) reasonably "expect" beanball pitches. This is a factual, empirical question, and the court's answer to this question was derived from anecdote: the court's opinion recites various instances of beanballs and statements concerning beanballs and concludes that beanballs are within the common expectation of batters. At best, this form of offhand empiricism is a poor substitute for the real thing. Do batters truly expect beanballs? Should someone sample them for their opinion? If so, what degree of a shared opinion would suffice for a court to decide that beanballs are in fact "normally expected"?
Grand empirical pronouncements based on anecdote, if based on anything at all, permeate legal decisions. I don't think courts actually care about the true empirical answer: in other words, even if some enterprising social scientist were to present a court with convincing evidence that batters do not to any significant degree expect a pitcher to throw at them intentionally, I don't think the California court would change its decision. Maybe its reasoning, but not its decision. Courts do not really care what actual people actually expect. Indeed, now that this decision has been handed down, as a matter of law, at least in California, the intentional beanball is within the field of risks that batters assume.
Courts don't care about these empirical questions they pose, and I'll argue next that they shouldn't care. The purpose of legal decisions is not to describe reality; there is a large prescriptive component, one that aims to shape reality as much as describe it. We'll see how the court prescribes "baseball."
posted by TSLP at 9/20/2006
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