Civil liability, in contrast, is both intentionally created and relationally structured. The vulnerability of a tortfeasor to a civil action by a tort victim is not an accidental or regrettable byproduct of tort law’s pursuit of another goal. There is a real sense in which the purpose of tort law is to impose civil liability on tortfeasors. This is not to deny that tort law serves various instrumental goals for which liability is a tool. While neo-formalists like Professor Ernest Weinrib insist that private law has no purpose other than to be private law, one need not adopt such a position to accept the claim that civil
liability is in some sense the goal of tort law.104 The same is true of the civil liability created by contract law. Furthermore, the vulnerability created by civil liability is not a general vulnerability in the face of broad forces. Rather, the vulnerability is sharply limited. The tortfeasor is not generally vulnerable to attack on the basis of his tortious conduct. Rather, he is vulnerable to attack only by a plaintiff armed with a judgment declaring that the tortfeasor is civilly liable.