This Article advances a novel positive theory of tort law. The Article's core insight is that the benefit from the harm-causing activity determines the form and substance of tort liability. This finding is surprising and innovative, since tort scholars universally believe that the doctrines determining individuals' liability for accidents-negligence, causation, and damage-are driven by harms, not benefits. Specifically, the Article shows that our tort system operates in two modes-private and public-rather than one, as conventional accounts erroneously suggest. The mode and the rules allocating liability for accidents are determined by the type of benefit sought by the alleged tortfeasor. If the benefit is purely private, the tortfeasor will be liable for the harm whenever she exposes the victim to a nonreciprocal risk, no matter how significant that private benefit is relative to the harm. By excluding cost-benefit analysis and favoring reciprocity and equality principles, the system discourages the production of private benefits even when they are economically more valuable than the victim's safety. When the benefit accompanying the harm-causing activity is public, however, tort law adopts a strictly utilitarian approach and focuses on minimizing the sum of costs of accidents and costs of accident prevention. Liability thus is imposed based on the famous Learned Hand formula (and similar formulations): No liability will be imposed if the benefit from the activity is greater than the expected harm and precautions are too costly. This insight has far-reaching implications. Scholars interpret the tort system's goal as promoting fairness and corrective justice or, alternatively, economic efficiency, but not both. The Article demonstratesthat this dichotomous view is fundamentally mistaken. The case law reveals that our tort system promotes fairness and corrective justice only when it operates in the private mode, but when the system switches to the public mode, it balances victims' safety against the production of public benefits.
