This session will provide an overview of the critical issues in determining the role of tort, if any, in the context of disasters. Assuming that we can define a disaster (not clear, but handled by other sessions), should tort law be restricted to accidents that fall below the “disaster” threshold? The natural lines of debates in this session might be something like “can our theory of duty handle disasters (yes/no)?”; “can our theories of causation handle disasters (yes/no)?”; does strict liability or negligence theory make a difference?; and, does the traditional tort approach to damages need to be reconstituted in the disaster context?