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Full-Text Articles in Law
Are All ‘Legal Dollars’ Created Equal?, Doron Teichman, Yuval Feldman
Are All ‘Legal Dollars’ Created Equal?, Doron Teichman, Yuval Feldman
ExpressO
For several decades law and economic scholars have employed the tools of price theory in order to evaluate an array of legal questions ranging from criminal sanctions to contract remedies. This vast body of literature implicitly assumed that all payments made through the legal system are fungible. In other words, just as a dollar paid for a tomato is identical to a dollar paid for a cucumber, so are a dollar paid as a pollution tax to the government and a dollar paid as compensation to the party injured by the pollution. In this study we challenge this assumption, and …
Daubert And The Disappearing Jury Trial, Allan Kanner
Daubert And The Disappearing Jury Trial, Allan Kanner
ExpressO
Since being decided by the Supreme Court in 1993, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals has earned its place as one of the most misinterpreted and misapplied decisions in modern history. Meant to liberalize the standards for admissions of proof, the decision has had the opposite effect. The gatekeeper powers given to judges via Daubert, coupled with the internal and external incentives to prevent jury trials, has placed our entire civil justice system at risk.
A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp
A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp
ExpressO
The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.
Bond Repudiation, Tax Codes, The Appropriations Process And Restitution Post-Eminent Domain Reform, John H. Ryskamp
Bond Repudiation, Tax Codes, The Appropriations Process And Restitution Post-Eminent Domain Reform, John H. Ryskamp
ExpressO
This brief comment suggests where the anti-eminent domain movement might be heading next.
Statutes Of Repose And The Equal Protection Clause Of The 14th Amendment Of The U.S. Constitution, Garris G. Ference
Statutes Of Repose And The Equal Protection Clause Of The 14th Amendment Of The U.S. Constitution, Garris G. Ference
ExpressO
No abstract provided.
Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor
Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor
ExpressO
No abstract provided.
Soft Regulators, Tough Judges, Gerrit De Geest, Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci
Soft Regulators, Tough Judges, Gerrit De Geest, Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci
George Mason University School of Law Working Papers Series
Judges have a tendency to be more demanding than regulators. In the United States, a majority of the courts has adopted the rule that the unexcused violation of a statutory standard is negligence per se. However, the converse does not hold: compliance with regulation does not relieve the injurer of tort liability. In most European legal systems, the outcome is similar. We use a framework in which, on the one hand, the effects of tort law are undermined by insolvency and evidence problems and, on the other hand, regulation is expensive in terms of monitoring and information gathering. We show …
Organizational Misconduct: Beyond The Principal-Agent Model, Kimberly D. Krawiec
Organizational Misconduct: Beyond The Principal-Agent Model, Kimberly D. Krawiec
ExpressO
This article demonstrates that, at least since the adoption of the Organizational Sentencing Guidelines in 1991, the United States legal regime has been moving away from a system of strict vicarious liability toward a system of duty-based organizational liability. Under this system, organizational liability for agent misconduct is dependant on whether or not the organization has exercised due care to avoid the harm in question, rather than under traditional agency principles of respondeat superior. Courts and agencies typically evaluate the level of care exercised by the organization by inquiring whether the organization had in place internal compliance structures ostensibly designed …
Disappearing Defendants V. Judgment Proof Injurers: Upgrading The Theory Of Tort Law Failures, Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci, Barbara Mangan
Disappearing Defendants V. Judgment Proof Injurers: Upgrading The Theory Of Tort Law Failures, Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci, Barbara Mangan
George Mason University School of Law Working Papers Series
Do injurers’ insolvency and victims’ reluctance to sue affect accident prevention in the same way? Are these circumstances less of a problem under the negligence rule than under strict liability? We argue, contrary to the literature, that the answer is, in most cases, negative and make three main points. First, the judgment proof problem and the disappearing defendant problem are shown to have different effects on injurers’ behavior and hence yield dissimilar levels of social welfare. Second, when these two problems occur simultaneously they may have offsetting effects. Third, the negligence rule is superior to strict liability only under some …
Soft Negligence And Cause In Fact: A Comment On Ganuza And Gomez, Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci
Soft Negligence And Cause In Fact: A Comment On Ganuza And Gomez, Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci
George Mason University School of Law Working Papers Series
Lowering the standard of negligence below the first-best socially optimal level has been shown by Ganuza and Gomez (2004) to increase the level of care taken by judgment proof injurers. In this paper, I consider a more complex model of negligence in which cause in fact is taken into account, and I show that this conclusion holds when the injurer’s care reduces the magnitude of the accidental harm but not when the injurer’s care reduces the probability of the accident. Thus, such soft negligence strategies aimed at tackling the adverse effects of judgment proofness need to be conditioned to the …
Developing Internationally Uniform Liability Principles For Harms From Genetically Modified Organisms , Ryan C. Hansen
Developing Internationally Uniform Liability Principles For Harms From Genetically Modified Organisms , Ryan C. Hansen
ExpressO
This paper analyzes the current legal principles regarding liabillity for harms from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the U.S. and E.U., as well as the various international policies and mechanisms affecting GMOs
Mass Toxic Tort Litigation And Class Action Rule Reform In The United States, Jason L. Betts
Mass Toxic Tort Litigation And Class Action Rule Reform In The United States, Jason L. Betts
ExpressO
The paper advances the proposition that mass toxic tort litigation has been the predominant driver of class action rule reform in the Unites States. Through three distinct phases of proposals to reform Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the judicial and academic attitude to the certification of mass toxic torts has influenced the reform debate in radically different ways – initially by providing the catalyst for efforts to reform Rule 23; then as a dampener against significant reforms to Rule 23 in the wake of mass toxic tort “settlement-only” classes; and ultimately as an explanation for the …