Gregory Keating
USC Gould School of Law

William T. Dalessi Professor of Law and Philosophy

Email: gkeating@law.usc.edu
Telephone: (213) 740-2565
Fax: (213) 740-5502
699 Exposition Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90089-0074 USA Room: 454
Personal Website: Link
SSRN Author Page: Link

Download Curriculum Vitae

Last Updated: October 6, 2020

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Gregory C. Keating joined the USC Gould School of Law faculty in 1991 and was promoted to full professor in 1996; he also holds a joint appointment with the USC Department of Philosophy. He teaches torts, legal ethics, and seminars in legal and political philosophy.

Keating graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Amherst College, earned an MA and PhD in Political Philosophy from Princeton University, and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. After graduating from Harvard, he practiced law in Massachusetts for five years before joining USC Gould. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and at the Buchmann Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv, Israel.

Keating is an editor of a torts casebook and writes on torts, professional responsibility and legal theory. He has published articles on the morality of reasonable risk imposition and the law of negligence more generally; on the history of and moral justification for strict liability in tort; on why justice requires that we take inefficiently great precaution against significant risks of death and devastating injury; and on issues of professional responsibility, with particular attention to the problems that confront practicing lawyers. Some of his recent titles include “Products Liability As Enterprise Liability”, (forthcoming, Journal of Tort Law 2017); Comment on Gardner: Duty and Right in Private Law (forthcoming, Jerusalem Journal of Legal Studies 2017); “Is Cost-Benefit Analysis the Only Game in Town? (SSRN 2016); Must the Hand Formula Not Be Named? (University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 2015); “Strict Liability Wrongs” (Philosophical Foundations of Tort Law, 2014); “When is Emotional Distress Harm?” (Tort Law: Challenging Orthodoxy, 2013); and “The Priority of Respect Over Repair” (Legal Theory 2012).

A former teaching fellow at Harvard and Princeton universities, Keating served as an officer of the Section on Jurisprudence of the American Association of Law Schools. He also has consulted with the County of Los Angeles on issues of professional responsibility and conflicts of interest.

Articles

• "What Ever Happened to Dignity?" Review of The Puzzle of the Dignitary Torts by Kenneth S. Abraham & G.Edward White (104 Cornell Law Review __ (forthcoming 2018). JOTWELL: The Journal of Things We Like (Lots) October 12, 2018.
• "Principles of Risk Imposition and the Priority of Avoiding Harm," 36 Revus: Journal for Constitutional Theory and Philosophy of Law (2018).
• "Products Liability as Enterprise Liability," 10 Journal of Tort Law 41 (2017).
• “Duty Or Right - A Comment on John Gardner's From Personal Life to Private Law," 15 Jerusalem Journal of Legal Studies 152 (2017).
• "Is There Really No Liability Without Fault?: A Critique Of Goldberg & Zipursky," Fordham Law Review Online (2017).
• "Torts and the Paradox of Conservative Justice: A Response to Avraham and Yuracko," 78 Ohio State Law Journal Furthermore 29 (2017).
• "Is Cost-Benefit Analysis the Only Game in Town?" (2016).
• "Must the Hand Formula Not Be Named?" 163 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 367 (2015).
• "The Priority of Respect Over Repair," 18 Legal Theory 293 (2012).
• "Nuisance as a Strict Liability Wrong," 4.3 Journal of Tort Law 2 (2012).
• "Recovering Rylands," 61 DePaul Law Review 543 (2012).
• “Is Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress a Freestanding Tort?” 44 Wake Forest Law Review 1131 (2009).
• "Putting Duty in its Place: A Reply to Professors Goldberg and Zipursky," 41 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 1225 (2008) (with Dilan A. Esper).
• "The Heroic Enterprise of Asbestos Adjudication," 37 Southwestern Law Review 623 (2008).
• "Personal Inviolability and Private Law," 1.2 Journal of Tort Law 4 (2007).
• "Strict Liability and the Mitigation of Moral Luck," 1.4 Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy 1 (2006).
• "Abusing 'Duty'," 79 Southern California Law Review 265 (2006) (with Dilan A. Esper).
• "Property Right and Tortious Wrong in Vincent v. Lake Erie," Issues in Legal Scholarship 6 (2005).
• “Pricelessness and Life: An Essay for Guido Calabresi,” 64 Maryland Law Review 101 (2005).
• "Rawlsian Fairness and Regime Choice in the Law of Accidents," 72 Fordham Law Review 1857 (2004).
• "Vexing Situations: Ethics and International Practice," 13 The California International Practitioner 10 (2004) (with Neal Millard and Robert E. Lutz).
• "Irreparable Injury and Extraordinary Precaution: The Safety and Feasibility Norms in American Accident Law," 4 Theoretical Inquiries in Law 1 (2003).
• "Pressing Precaution Beyond the Point of Cost-Justification," 56 Vanderbilt Law Review 653 (2003).
• "The Theory of Enterprise Liability and Common Law Strict Liability," 54 Vanderbilt Law Review 1285 (2001).
• "Distributive and Corrective Justice in the Tort Law of Accidents," 74 Southern California Law Review 193 (2000).
• "The Idea of Fairness in the Law of Enterprise Liability," 95 Michigan Law Review 1266 (1997).
• "Reasonableness and Rationality in Negligence Theory," 48 Stanford Law Review 311 (1996).
• "Fidelity to Pre-Existing Law and the Legitimacy of Legal Decision," 69 Notre Dame Law Review 1 (1993).

Books

• Teacher’s Manual to Accompany Tort and Accident Law, 4th ed. (with Robert E. Keeton and Lewis D. Sargentich) (West Group, 2005).
• Tort and Accident Law: Cases and Materials, 4th ed. (with Robert E. Keeton and Lewis D. Sargentich) (West Group, 2004).
• Cases and Materials on Tort and Accident Law, 3rd ed. (with Robert E. Keeton and Lewis D. Sargentich) (West Group, 1998).
• Teacher's Manual to Accompany Tort and Accident Law, 3rd ed. (with Robert E. Keeton and Lewis D. Sargentich) (West Group, 1998).

Contribution to Book

• “The Ambiguous Standing of Suffering in Negligence Law,” in Knowing the Suffering of Others: Legal Perspectives on Pain and its Meanings (Austin Sarat, ed.) (University of Alabama Press, 2014).
• "Strict Liability Wrongs," in Philosophical Foundations of Tort Law (John Oberdiek, ed.) (Oxford University Press, 2014).
• "When is Emotional Distress Harm?" in Tort Law: Challenging Orthodoxy (Stephen G. A. Pitel, Jason W. Neyers, and Erica Chamberlain, eds.) (Hart Pub., 2013).
• "Is the Role of Tort Law to Correct Wrongful Losses?" in Rights and Private Law (D. Nolan and A. Robertson, eds.) (Hart Pub. 2012).
• "A Social Contract Conception of the Tort Law of Accidents," in Philosophy and the Law of Torts (Gerald J. Postema, ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Book Reviews

• "Justifying Hercules: Ronald Dworkin and the Review of Law." Review of Law's Empire, by Ronald Dworkin. 1987 American Bar Foundation Research Journal 525.

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

Politi Fact
May 23, 2023
Re: David B. Cruz

Professor David Cruz was recently interviewed about a controversial bill that was passed in Connecticut. "Paying even modest attention to the bill’s definitions should make it clear beyond doubt that it will not be the source of protections based upon the age of people to whom one is attracted or with whom one has sex," Cruz said.

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