What can we learn from the Swiss government’s rejection in 2009 of the general revision of civil liability? The major lessons are (1) that tort law as a relatively unattractive topic can be revised only with strong political support. (2) According to the ‘laziness-principle’ dominant in the history of law, a revision is unlikely if the existing norms do not create fundamental obstacles, if the difficulties of everyday practice are not dissuasive; doctrinal unsoundness is generally considered as irrelevant. In other words, no revision if a certain ‘pain threshold’ in legal practice is not reached. (3) Legal aesthetics and old habits can play an important role. The more the form of the new law changes and the more it overturns existing practice with its whole bunch of professional reflexes, the less successful a revision of tort law will be.