Today's tort liability falls short of its laudable goals of deterring substandard care, compensating those injured and operating a fair injury resolution process. Medical and safety reformers call for cutting back liability, but reforms ought to improve both compensation and patient safety. Scenarios toward improvement are presented, but a key improvement is listing avoidable classes of events (ACEs) in advance, so that compensability is clearer, than paying those promptly through an insurance process rather than adjudication. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 33(3): 478-500 (Fall 2005)