"Buying The Tort"

I'm not sure he uses the best example, but KipEsquire used a great phrase - "Buying The Tort" - to describe a situation when an individual or company commits a tort because it's profitable.  He, like me, argues that in many cases, punitive damages are the only way to deter tortfeasors and would-be tortfeasors:

"Now imagine if there were no such thing as punitive damages. People like these jackasses could go around in their balaclavas scaring the bejeesus out of people in order to make a buck (or, perhaps worse, just for the heck of it) as often as they liked. The threat of a lawsuit, based just on compensatory damages, would be no threat at all. This is what is known as "buying the tort" — tortfeasors knowingly committing torts knowing that even if they get sued, it's "worth it." (In negligence, by contrast, the defendant isn't knowingly doing anything wrong -- that's the very definition of negligence.)"

Buying the tort.  I'm surprised I've never heard that phrase before...