No legal authority would step in to impose a Pigouvian tax on my behavior. Likewise there is nothing that guarantees or even requires that I comply with some duty of repair or the residual obligations of the duty of care. Rather,
nothing happens unless the plaintiff chooses to act. A plaintiff must bring suit, and upon a declaration that the defendant is liable the plaintiff is given control of the remedial machinery that acts against the defendant. For example,
the plaintiff controls whether a writ of fieri facias issues to the sheriff instructing him to seize the defendant’s property. The same is true to a certain extent with the criminal law. Nothing happens unless a prosecutor chooses to act. The difference is that—at least in theory—the prosecutor acts as an agent of the public, albeit one who exercises enormous discretion.
47 He or she has a duty to “take Care that that the Laws be faithfully executed.”48 A civil plaintiff has no such duty. Rather, he or she owns his or her claims, which are treated as a piece of personal property.49 Public officials, in contrast, who treat the powers conferred by their offices as personal property have generally committed a crime (such as accepting bribes when they try to sell that power).