# Strict Liability **The model:** Liability without fault: for certain acts, you pay for the harm regardless of intent or care — blasting, defective products, wild animals, statutory rape, many regulatory offenses. The design says: some activities are dangerous enough, or proof of fault hard enough, that we put the entire risk on the actor best positioned to control it. ## The Mechanism Strict liability is incentive engineering. Negligence regimes ask "did you behave reasonably?" and invite fault-litigation theater; strict liability asks only "did your activity cause this?" — forcing actors to internalize expected harms fully and to *choose activity levels*, not just care levels, with the true social cost priced in. The trade-off: it can over-deter valuable activity and it severs punishment from blame, which is why criminal law tolerates it only at the edges ([[Mens Rea]] is the counter-principle). ## KB Applications ### The deregulation asymmetry The movement documented in this vault runs a consistent asymmetry: strict liability for individuals (immigration offenses, drug possession — status crimes with no intent inquiry) and fault-shields for firms (liability caps, arbitration clauses, PREP Act immunities, §230 debates). Mapping who gets strict liability and who gets negligence-plus-immunity is a fast X-ray of a legal order's priorities — cross-file with [[Regulatory Capture]] and [[Elite Impunity]]. ### Platform accountability fights Whether AI developers and platforms face strict liability for foreseeable harms or negligence-with-safe-harbors is the live 2025–26 question; the model gives the vocabulary for what's actually being allocated: activity-level incentives. ## See Also - [[Mens Rea]] — the fault principle this suspends - [[Moral Hazard (Term)]] — what immunity regimes manufacture - [[Skin in the Game]] — strict liability as forced skin