Civil liability is a form of vulnerability because a judgment of liability means that a defendant is exposed in a way that he was not before. It may be unclear exactly to what he is exposed. Damages? Injunctions? Something else? There are, however, two elements present in all cases of civil liability. First, the person who is liable is subject to demands that the person who is not liable does not face. If a court declares that someone is in breach of contract, then his liberty and property are exposed in a way that they were not previously exposed. He may be required on pain of imprisonment
to perform some act. His property may be subject to seizure in payment of some debt. In the absence of liability, however, laws against kidnapping and extortion would protect him from the kind of pressure that can be brought against his liberty once deemed liable. Likewise, laws against theft would protect his property from the kind of seizure to which it would be
potentially exposed after a judgment of liability. Second, civil liability does not make a person generally vulnerable. Rather, it makes him vulnerable to a particular person, namely the plaintiff. At any point after the declaration of liability, the plaintiff can choose to exercise whatever powers the law gives her over the defendant or can choose to forbear.66 A finding of liability may give rise to a claim for money damages, but if the plaintiff declines to swear out a writ of fieri facias against the defendant’s property, nothing happens.