People no longer feel free to act on their best judgment, because of the fear of lawsuits, according to lawyer Philip K Howard in a talk given to the TED conference in February. But what should be do about it? We do not want to give up the right to seek redress in the courts when people do something wrong, and we want to make sure we can still take legal proceedings to stop people polluting or engaging in other damaging conduct…

Howard has four propositions for simplifying the law: 1. Judge law mainly by its effect on society, not individual situations; 2. Trust in law is an essential condition of freedom. Distrust skews behaviour towards failure; 3. Law must set boundaries protecting an open field of freedom, not intercede in all disputes; and 4. To rebuild boundaries of freedom, two changes are essential: simplify the law, and restore authority to judges and officials to apply law.

By attempting to create a system where no-one can have bad values, we have created a system where no-one can have good values. Accountability needs to be judged by the effect of actions on everybody, not just on the disgruntled person. If the judge does not have the authority to toss out unreasonable claims, then all of us go through the day looking over our shoulders.