Law Commons^™

Possessing Intangibles, João Marinotti

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The concept of possession is currently considered inapplicable to intangible assets, whether data, cryptocurrency, or NFTs. Under this view, intangible assets categorically fall outside the purview of property law’s foundational doctrines. Such sweeping conclusions stem from a misunderstanding of the role of possession in property law. This Article refutes the idea that possession constitutes—or even requires—physical control by distinguishing possession from another foundational concept, that of thinghood. It highlights possession’s unique purpose within the property process: conveying the status of in rem claims. In property law, the concept of possession conveys to third parties the allocation of property rights and …

Public Policy And The Insurability Of Cyber Risk, Asaf Lubin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In June 2017, the food and beverage conglomerate Mondelez International became a victim of the NotPetya ransomware attack. Around 1,700 of its servers and 24,000 of the company’s laptops were suddenly and permanently unusable. Commercial supply and distribution disruptions, theft of credentials from many users, and unfulfilled customer orders soon followed, leading to losses that totaled more than $100 million. Unfortunately, Zurich, which had sold the company a property insurance policy that included a variety of coverages, informed Mondelez in 2018 that cyber coverage would be denied under the policy based on the “war exclusion clause.” This case, now pending, …

Insuring Evolving Technology, Asaf Lubin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The study of the interaction between law and technology is more critical today than ever before. Advancements in artificial intelligence, information communications, biological and chemical engineering, and space-faring technologies, to name but a few examples, are forcing us to reexamine our traditional understanding of basic concepts in torts and insurance law.

Yet, few insurance professionals and scholars will identify themselves as working in the field of “law-and-technology.” For many of them, technology is “just a fact about the world like any other,” as Ryan Calo once put it, not one that always merits “special care.”

This short paper is an …

Compensating Victims Of Police Violence, Valena Beety

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Victims of police violence suffer physical trauma and their families suffer mental trauma “born from the violation of a certain social trust.” Their losses are also financial, including medical expenses and mental health treatment, as well as lost income. While scholars and citizens have advocated for accountability and justice, this is the first essay to advocate for the simple act of victims’ compensation for victims of police violence.

To be considered for compensation, victims must first prove that they cooperated with law enforcement and were “innocent” of wrongdoing. Yet, victims of police violence are inordinately and openly blamed for their …

Preparatory Negligence, Robert H. Heidt

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Essay discusses the appropriate significance in tort law of a negligent attempt to perform an injurious activity when the evidence is insufficient to show the actual performance of the activity was negligent. The author calls such a negligent attempt uncoupled with sufficient evidence of negligent performance "preparatory negligence." An example would be driving a car when one is so inebriated that the decision to drive is negligent but those injured in a subsequent accident are unable to show the inebriated driver's actual driving was negligent. The author argues that preparatory negligence alone should never warrant tort liability. Rather, those …

The Unappreciated Inportance, For Small Business Defendants, Of The Duty To Settle, Robert H. Heidt

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Damned For Their Judgment: The Tort Liability Of Standard Development Organizations, Robert H. Heidt

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Regarding Pained Sympathy And Sympathy Pains: Morality, And Empathy In The Civil Adjudication Of Pain, Jody L. Madeira

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Essay considers the legal propriety of the empathic responses of jurors to suffering plaintiffs. To that end, Part II first explicates the legal contours of a tension between what is experiential or physical (objective) and what is expressionistic or non-physical (subjective). This tension is a foundational jurisprudential concern in personal injury litigation because the subjective is seen to threaten the rule of law: the perceived primacy of reason and logic. Thus, this tension is also what the parties' attorneys seek to exploit and what the court seeks to constrain. Part III explores why an empathic identification is indeed a …

Recognizing Odysseus' Scar: Reconceptualizing Pain And Its Empathic Role In Civil Adjudication, Jody L. Madeira

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article proffers a consideration of how the expression of pain impacts the interpersonal dimensions of personal injury proceedings, contesting through philosophical logic and textual analyses of case law and legal practitioners' texts the conclusion of scholars such as Elaine Scarry and Robert Cover that pain unmakes both the word and the world. Seeing pain as something that can and must be communicated, albeit in a different form than pain embodied, makes pain a much more profound force, comports with our understanding of pain as a physical yet interpersonally meaningful sensation, and has many evidentiary ramifications. Taking as its premise …

Lashing Reason To The Mast: Understanding Judicial Constraints On Emotion In Personal Injury Litigation, Jody L. Madeira

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Arguing from the premise that personal injury plaintiffs and injury evidence do not taint proceedings by encouraging jurors to adjudicate based on emotion rather than evidence, this article reviews and challenges judicial attempts to constrain jurors' emotive responses to an injured plaintiff in three areas of personal injury litigation: voir dire, admissibility of evidence, and restrictions on damages arguments and assessment. The judicial abhorrence of sympathy as a ground for substantive decision making during some phases of the trial clashes with judicial tolerance of the emotion during others, giving rise to a pattern of sympathy in, sympathy out where the …

Talk Show Torts Turn Deaf Ear To Plaintiffs, Joseph A. Tomain

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Avid Sportsman And The Scope For Self-Protection: When Exculpatory Clauses Should Be Enforced, Robert H. Heidt

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Avoiding The Mistakes Of Terrell R.: The Undoing Of The California Tort Claims Act And The Move To Absolute Governmental Immunity In Foster Care Placement And Supervision, Austen L. Parrish

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article addresses the issue of governmental immunity and mandatory duty liability in the context of foster child abuse. The article should be of interest to children's rights organizations, legal scholars, practitioners and judges who face governmental liability issues related to the California foster care system.

The California Tort Claims Act has, until recently, long served as an important means by which foster children may obtain recourse from the government for injuries caused by social worker negligence. In the late 1990s, however, the California courts of appeal retreat - without justification - from the dictates of the Tort Claims Act. …

Legislative Reforms Of Governmental Tort Liability: Overreacting To Minimal Evidence, Ann Judith Gellis

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Recasting Behavior: An Essay For Beginning Law Students, Robert H. Heidt

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Seduction And The Myth Of The Ideal Woman, M. B. W. Sinclair

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Representation On A Claimant's Success Rate -- Three Study Designs, William D. Popkin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Accident, Mistake, And Rules Of Liability In The Fourteenth-Century Law Of Torts, Morris S. Arnold

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Products Liability: Dean Wade And The Constitutionality Of Section 402a, Reed Dickerson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Concerning Cause And The Law Of Torts: An Essay For Harry Kalven, Jr., Guido Calabresi

Addison Harris Lecture

No abstract provided.

Was Prosser's Folly Also Traynor's? Or Should The Judge's Monument Be Moved To A Firmer Site?, Reed Dickerson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Toward A Test For Strict Liability In Torts, Jon T. Hirschoff, Guido Calabresi

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Theory Of Economic Policy And The Law Of Torts, Robert L. Birmingham

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Abc's Of Products Liability -- With A Close Look At Section 402a And The Code, Reed Dickerson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Survey Of North Carolina Case Law: Torts: Part Two, Philip C. Thorpe

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Television, Tort Law, And Federalism, Robert M. O'Neil

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Victim's Fault In Wrongful Death Actions In French Law, Wencelas J. Wagner

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Some Thoughts About Physical Harm, Disclaimers And Warranties, Douglass Boshkoff

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Sales And Secured Transactions, Douglass Boshkoff

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Basis Of Strict Products Liability, Reed Dickerson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This paper was presented before the Division of Food Drug Cosmetic Law, Section of Corporation, Banking and Business Law of the American Bar Association at the Annual Meeting in St. Louis, August 9. It Is a companion paper to "Restatement or Reformation?" by William J. Condon, which appeared in the August, 1961 issue of this magazine. Mr. Dickerson Is Professor of Law at Indiana University and author of Products Liability and the Food Consumer.