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Full-Text Articles in Law
Driverless Cars And The Much Delayed Tort Law Revolution, Andrzej Rapaczynski
Driverless Cars And The Much Delayed Tort Law Revolution, Andrzej Rapaczynski
Faculty Scholarship
The most striking development in the American tort law of the last century was the quick rise and fall of strict manufacturers’ liability for the huge social losses associated with the use of industrial products. The most important factor in this process has been the inability of the courts and academic commentators to develop a workable theory of design defects, resulting in a wholesale return of negligence as the basis of products liability jurisprudence. This article explains the reasons for this failure and argues that the development of digital technology, and the advent of self-driving cars in particular, is likely …
The Fault Of Not Knowing, George P. Fletcher
The Fault Of Not Knowing, George P. Fletcher
Faculty Scholarship
Despite the outpouring of interest in tort and criminal theory over the last thirty years, not much progress has been made toward understanding the basic concepts for analyzing liability. Common law theorists of torts and criminal law tend to accept the conventional distinction between objective and subjective standards and the view that objective negligence is not really fault in the way that subjective negligence is. The author's view is that this distinction between objective and subjective standards is misunderstood and that, in fact, so-called objective negligence is a test of fault or culpability in the same way that subjective standards …
Fairness And Utility In Tort Theory, George P. Fletcher
Fairness And Utility In Tort Theory, George P. Fletcher
Faculty Scholarship
Professor Fletcher challenges the traditional account of the development of tort doctrine as a shift from an unmoral standard of strict liability for directly causing harm to a moral standard based on fault. He then sets out two paradigms of liability to serve as constructs for understanding competing ideological viewpoints about the proper role of tort sanctions. He asserts that the paradigm of reciprocity, which looks only to the degree of risk imposed by the parties to a lawsuit on each other, and to the existence of possible excusing conditions, provides greater protection of individual interests than the paradigm of …