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Seller Beware: Tort Reform Is Missing In Action; Soproni, Falk, And The Entrenchment Of Strict Products Liability In Washington, Kenneth M. Roessler
Seller Beware: Tort Reform Is Missing In Action; Soproni, Falk, And The Entrenchment Of Strict Products Liability In Washington, Kenneth M. Roessler
Seattle University Law Review
This article evaluates Washington’s products liability laws and their application in ways involving strict liability through the lens of Soproni v. Polygon Apartment Partners. Part I will also closely examine the WPLA, beginning with a discussion of the tort reform context in which it was enacted and the underlying economic reasons for its passage in 1981. This section will discuss how the WPLA ostensibly supplanted Washington common law on product liability, as well as what a careful reading of the statute seems to dictate for litigating product liability claims. The article then examines how the Soproni majority construed the …
Interpretation Of The Statutory Modification Of Joint And Several Liability: Resisting The Deconstruction Of Tort Reform, Gregory C. Sisk
Interpretation Of The Statutory Modification Of Joint And Several Liability: Resisting The Deconstruction Of Tort Reform, Gregory C. Sisk
Seattle University Law Review
This Article defends RCW 4.22.070 and opposes the deconstruction of legislative tort reform. The Article’s premise is that the legislature did indeed intend to accomplish a significant reform of the liability system and to take a long, purposeful stride toward the implementation of comparative fault as applied to all parties in tort litigation. The Article concludes that the legislature adopted language that adequately, if sometimes imperfectly, achieves that purpose. The Article discusses the following: the meaning of “fault” as applicable through RCW 4.22.070; the nature of the entities to whom fault must be allocated; the responsibility for raising the culpability …