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Full-Text Articles in Law

World-Wide Volkswagen Corporation V. Woodson: Minimum Contacts In A Modern World, Craig H. Millet Feb 2013

World-Wide Volkswagen Corporation V. Woodson: Minimum Contacts In A Modern World, Craig H. Millet

Pepperdine Law Review

World Wide Volkswagen Corporation v. Woodson considers the problem of modifying in personam jurisdiction to comply with the changing nature of the American economy. Several lower courts had adjusted the "minimum contacts" test of International Shoe Co. v. Washington to allow for the differences in modern economic lifestyle, but a uniformity amongst the various approaches was lacking. Rather than synthesize a contemporary test for the assertion of in personam jurisdiction, the World- Wide Court chose to place state sovereignty above modern commercial realities and adhere to a more rigid application of the minimum contacts analysis. The author takes issue with …


Doomed Steamers And Merged Fires: The Problem Of Preempted Innocent Threats In Torts, Anthony M. Dillof Feb 2013

Doomed Steamers And Merged Fires: The Problem Of Preempted Innocent Threats In Torts, Anthony M. Dillof

Anthony M. Dillof

This article addresses a classic question of tort theory: When a court assesses damages in a negligence action, it is relevant that the defendant’s negligence prevented the plaintiff from suffering a harm? For example, imagine that defendant Taxi Driver negligently crashes his taxi thereby injuring plaintiff Passenger. Is it relevant that because of the accident, Passenger did not reach the ocean liner he had been planning to sail on and, as a result, his life was saved because, as it turns out, the ocean liner sank, killing everyone aboard? Though this question has been recognized and addressed for almost a …


Defenseless Self-Defense: An Essay On Goldberg And Zipursky's Civil Recourse Defended, Alan Calnan Jan 2013

Defenseless Self-Defense: An Essay On Goldberg And Zipursky's Civil Recourse Defended, Alan Calnan

Alan Calnan

In a recent symposium published by the Indiana Law Journal, Professors John C.P. Goldberg and Benjamin C. Zipursky offer a spirited defense of their theory of civil recourse, which sees the tort system exclusively as a means of empowering victims of wrongs. This essay assails that defense, finding it curiously defenseless in three related respects. First, civil recourse’s key tenets are particularly vulnerable to criticism because they are quietly reductive, inscrutably vague, and highly unstable. Second, even in its most coherent form, civil recourse theory literally lacks any meaningful explanation of the defensive rights at play within the tort system. …


Rescuing Access To Patented Essential Medicines: Pharmaceutical Companies As Tortfeasors Under The Prevented Rescue Tort Theory, Richard Cameron Gower Jan 2013

Rescuing Access To Patented Essential Medicines: Pharmaceutical Companies As Tortfeasors Under The Prevented Rescue Tort Theory, Richard Cameron Gower

Richard Cameron Gower

Despite some difficulties, state tort law can be argued to create a unique exception to patent law. Specifically, the prevented rescue doctrine suggests that charities and others can circumvent patents on certain critical medications when such actions are necessary to save individuals from death or serious harm. Although this Article finds that the prevented rescue tort doctrines is preempted by federal patent law, all hope is not lost. A federal substantive due process claim may be brought that uses the common law to demonstrate a fundamental right that has long been protected by our Nation’s legal traditions. Moreover, this Article …


The Property Platform In Anglo-American Law And The Primacy Of The Property Concept, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2012

The Property Platform In Anglo-American Law And The Primacy Of The Property Concept, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

This Article proposes that the property concept, when reduced to its basic principles, is a foundational element and a useful lens for evaluating and understanding the whole of Anglo-American private law even though the discrete disciplines—property, tort, and contract—have their own separate and distinct existence. In this Article, a broad property concept is not focused just on things or on sticks related to things but instead is defined as relating to all things owned. These things may include one’s self and all the key elements associated with this broader set of things owned—including the right to exclude, ownership, dominion, authority, …