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Articles 1 - 28 of 28
Full-Text Articles in Law
Our Biggest Fans: Nuisance Immunity For Grid-Scale Wind Energy Projects In Maine, Andrew D. Hersom
Our Biggest Fans: Nuisance Immunity For Grid-Scale Wind Energy Projects In Maine, Andrew D. Hersom
Maine Law Review
Global climate change and its attendant impacts threaten to change life on Earth as we know it. The sea level rise that comes with rising temperatures is an issue of particular importance to coastal states like Maine. Thankfully, continued investment in renewable energy technology is beginning to make certain renewable energy sources competitive with their nonrenewable counterparts. This Comment highlights wind energy as a particularly effective option for meeting Maine’s energy needs while significantly reducing the harmful greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. Despite its many benefits, wind energy technology still has its detractors. Wind energy projects (especially …
Patient Decision Aids Improve Patient Safety And Reduce Medical Liability Risk, Thaddeus Mason Pope
Patient Decision Aids Improve Patient Safety And Reduce Medical Liability Risk, Thaddeus Mason Pope
Maine Law Review
Tort-based doctrines of informed consent have utterly failed to assure that patients understand the risks, benefits, and alternatives to the healthcare they receive. Fifty years of experience with the doctrine of informed consent have shown it to be an abject catastrophe. Most patients lack an even minimal understanding of their treatment options. But there is hope. Substantial evidence shows that patient decision aids (PDAs) and shared decision making can bridge the gap between the theory and practice of informed consent. These evidence-based educational tools empower patients to make decisions with significantly more knowledge and less decisional conflict than clinician-patient discussions …
A Better Interpretation Of The Wrongful Death Act, Dennis M. Doiron
A Better Interpretation Of The Wrongful Death Act, Dennis M. Doiron
Maine Law Review
A viable fetus is not a person under the wrongful death act, declared the Maine Law Court in a controversial decision in 1988. To reach this conclusion, the court employed one traditional and one new rule of statutory interpretation, and one traditional rule of law. The traditional rule of interpretation-that the wrongful death act is to be strictly construed because it is in derogation of the common law-dates from the earliest wrongful death cases heard by the court. The new rule of interpretation-that the death statute must be harmonized with the Maine Uniform Probate Code-derives from the enactment of the …
Employees Or Independent Contractors: A Call For Revision Of Maine's Unemployment Compensation "Abc Test", Christopher J. Cotnoir
Employees Or Independent Contractors: A Call For Revision Of Maine's Unemployment Compensation "Abc Test", Christopher J. Cotnoir
Maine Law Review
The Maine Employment Security Law governs whether one person performing services for another is an independent contractor or an employee for unemployment tax purposes. It requires many employers to pay unemployment taxes on individuals who, under the usual common law rules governing the employer-employee relationship, are independent contractors. This result, caused partly by the structure of the statute and partly by judicial interpretation, has the effect of discouraging business expansion, limiting entrepreneurial opportunities, and ultimately, hampering statewide economic development. This Comment first provides the historical background of unemployment compensation legislation at the federal and state levels. Employer liability and employee/independent …
Maine Physician Practice Guidelines: Implications For Medical Malpractice Litigation, Jennifer S. Begel
Maine Physician Practice Guidelines: Implications For Medical Malpractice Litigation, Jennifer S. Begel
Maine Law Review
This Article assesses the use of physician practice guidelines as a vehicle for medical malpractice tort reform and focuses upon the State of Maine's legislation incorporating physician practice parameters into the defense of medical malpractice litigation. The Maine Medical Liability Demonstration Project (the “Demonstration Project”) legislatively adopts practice guidelines in four different medical specialties and allows physicians in those specialties to assert compliance with the applicable guideline as an affirmative defense. The affirmative defense of compliance with such guidelines has been touted as a means of protecting physicians from, and decreasing the costs associated with, medical malpractice litigation. While the …
Protecting Discretion: Judicial Interpretation Of The Discretionary Function Exception To The Federal Tort Claims Act, Donald N. Zillman University Of Maine School Of Law
Protecting Discretion: Judicial Interpretation Of The Discretionary Function Exception To The Federal Tort Claims Act, Donald N. Zillman University Of Maine School Of Law
Maine Law Review
In 1996 the Federal Tort Claims Act turns fifty. Few statutes reach the half-century mark only slightly amended and with their primary purposes still intact. The Federal Tort Claims Act is one such rare statute. The purpose of the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) was to make the United States liable for the torts of its employees committed in the scope of their employment. Today that sounds commonplace. Half a century ago, however, a considerable legislative effort was needed to overturn the doctrine of sovereign immunity that forbade the recovery of tort damages against the United States. Congress's rejecting sovereign …
The Unsettling Effect Of Maine Law On Settlement In Cases Involving Multiple Tortfeasors, Arlyn H. Weeks
The Unsettling Effect Of Maine Law On Settlement In Cases Involving Multiple Tortfeasors, Arlyn H. Weeks
Maine Law Review
When more than one person or entity causes injury to another, the multiple tortfeasors are jointly and severally liable to the injured party under Maine law. Maine has also provided since 1965 for comparison of the negligence of plaintiffs and defendants so that a plaintiff may not recover if his causative negligence is found to have equaled or exceeded that of the defendant. In addition, title 14, section 156 of the Maine Revised Statutes gives to each defendant the right to request that the jury allocate percentages of fault “contributed by each defendant.” Finally, title 14, section 163 of the …
A Day In The Life Of Tort Law, Douglas H. Cook
A Day In The Life Of Tort Law, Douglas H. Cook
Maine Law Review
What would one day's worth of tort law look like? We usually receive our doses of the law in measures other than per diem: by the case, by the brief, by the article, or by the treatise. There is, of course, a unity in each of those units; each one collects only those authorities that bear upon certain focused aspects of the law. For example, an appellate brief or a law review article is often a compendium of cases dealing within a narrow topical range, cases drawn from a span of many different days, years, or even decades. One way …
Taking Note Of Notary Employees: Employer Liability For Notary Employee Misconduct, Nancy Perkins Spyke
Taking Note Of Notary Employees: Employer Liability For Notary Employee Misconduct, Nancy Perkins Spyke
Maine Law Review
The law of agency governs the relations between principals, agents, and third persons. A portion of that body of law deals with the liabilities that arise when an agent causes harm to a third party. Situations in which negligent employees cause harm to their employers' customers are ripe for the application of standard agency principles. Those principles dictate that the employer will be liable for the tort of an employee if the tort is committed in the scope of employment. The Restatement (Second) of Agency and case law provide many illustrations. If an employer directs an employee to perform a …
When You Should Have Known: Rethinking Constructive Knowledge In Tort Liability For Sexual Transmission Of Hiv, John A. Turcotte
When You Should Have Known: Rethinking Constructive Knowledge In Tort Liability For Sexual Transmission Of Hiv, John A. Turcotte
Maine Law Review
AIDS is a modern epidemic that has grabbed the forefront of this nation's attention like no other disease in the twentieth century. Despite vigorous medical research and experimentation, the disease remains incurable and ultimately fatal. Protecting the health of the citizens has always been a strong policy of the law. Tort liability for the spread of contagious diseases dates back to the early nineteenth century. Tort liability for sexual transmission of AIDS began to appear in the late 1980s, not long after the appearance of the disease. Based as it was on the tort actions arising from other transmittable diseases, …
How The Law Court Uses Duty To Limit The Scope Of Negligence Liability, Paul F. Macri
How The Law Court Uses Duty To Limit The Scope Of Negligence Liability, Paul F. Macri
Maine Law Review
The element of duty is the least understood and most amorphous element of negligence. One reason that duty is not well understood is that duty analysis combines consideration of fact-specific issues of foreseeability of harm, relationship between the parties, and seriousness of injury with analysis of the public policy implications of finding a duty in the specific case, including the burden that will be placed on defendants by imposing a duty. This is a delicate balancing act for most courts. Over the last eleven years, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, has employed duty analysis in …
Budzko V. One City Center Associates Limited Partnership: Maine's Unique Approach To Business Owners' Duty To Remove Ice And Snow, Jennifer A.W. Williams
Budzko V. One City Center Associates Limited Partnership: Maine's Unique Approach To Business Owners' Duty To Remove Ice And Snow, Jennifer A.W. Williams
Maine Law Review
In February 2001, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, decided for the first time in Budzko v. One City Center Associates Limited Partnership, what duty of care a business landowner owes to business invitees regarding the accumulation of ice and snow during a storm. Terry Budzko slipped and fell as she was exiting One City Center, the building in which her employer leased office space. The steps had not been shoveled or sanded and a snowstorm had been progressing throughout the day. The Law Court, placing heavy reliance on the factor of foreseeability, held that “[b]usiness …
Time To Reconsider Nullum Tempus Occurrit Regi - The Applicability Of Statutes Of Limitations Against The State Of Maine In Civil Actions, Sigmond D. Schutz
Time To Reconsider Nullum Tempus Occurrit Regi - The Applicability Of Statutes Of Limitations Against The State Of Maine In Civil Actions, Sigmond D. Schutz
Maine Law Review
Many states, including the State of Maine, take the position that they have, essentially, an infinite time within which to bring a civil action. The basis for the State's claim of immunity from statutes of limitations is the old English common law doctrine, “nullum tempus occurrit regi”-- literally, no time runs against the King--which purports to exempt the State from statutes of limitations of general applicability unless statutes expressly provide otherwise. There has not been a Maine Supreme Judicial Court (Law Court) opinion mentioning the nullum tempusdoctrine since 1955, but the doctrine continues to be actively asserted by the State …
The Corporate Face Of The Alien Tort Claims Act: How An Old Statute Mandates A New Understanding Of Global Interdependence, Lorelle Londis
The Corporate Face Of The Alien Tort Claims Act: How An Old Statute Mandates A New Understanding Of Global Interdependence, Lorelle Londis
Maine Law Review
In the past thirty-five years, international human rights lawyers and, more recently, international environmental lawyers, have been invoking the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) as a tool to prosecute human rights abuses committed abroad by transnational corporations (TNs) in U.S. federal courts. The ATCA provides: “The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” Although plaintiffs' lawyers have experienced some success in the human rights context, most claims of environmental abuses have failed. In all these …
Church Liability For Clergy Sexual Abuse: Have Time And Events Overthrown Swanson V. Roman Catholic Bishop Of Portland?, Sonia J. Buck
Church Liability For Clergy Sexual Abuse: Have Time And Events Overthrown Swanson V. Roman Catholic Bishop Of Portland?, Sonia J. Buck
Maine Law Review
In Swanson v. Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland, Albert and Ruth Swanson sued their former pastor, Father Maurice Morin, after the couple's marriage counseling sessions with Father Morin led to a sexual relationship between Father Morin and Mrs. Swanson. The Swansons brought claims against Father Morin for negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent pastoral counseling. They also sued the Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland, a corporation, and Bishop Joseph Gerry in his personal capacity (collectively referred to as the “Church”) for negligence in selecting, training, and supervising Father Morin. The Maine Superior Court dismissed the claims against …
Negligence Per Se Theories In Pharmaceutical & Medical Device Litigation, Andrew E. Costa
Negligence Per Se Theories In Pharmaceutical & Medical Device Litigation, Andrew E. Costa
Maine Law Review
The notion of addressing the vagaries of negligence per se theories in the context of pharmaceutical and medical device litigation seems to promise little more than a monograph anesthetized by a body of obscure pharmaceutical and medical device provisions viewed through the lenses of various states' negligence law. Maybe little more than that can be assured. However, the issue of how courts should address negligence per se theories in this context implicates a variety of “larger” (or, possibly, more interesting) legal issues in general and pharmaceutical and medical device litigation in particular. Perhaps foremost among these issues is the interaction …
Unconstitutional Asymmetry Or A Rational Basis For Inconsistency? The Admissibility Of Medical Malpractice Prelitigation Screening Panel Findings Before And After Smith V. Hawthorne I And Ii, Matthew Asnault Morris
Unconstitutional Asymmetry Or A Rational Basis For Inconsistency? The Admissibility Of Medical Malpractice Prelitigation Screening Panel Findings Before And After Smith V. Hawthorne I And Ii, Matthew Asnault Morris
Maine Law Review
Pre-litigation screening panels have been instrumental in streamlining medical malpractice litigation in the State of Maine by culling claims from superior court dockets, encouraging settlements, and providing findings of fact that could prove useful for a jury if the case proceeds to trial. In enacting one particular provision governing the confidentiality and the admissibility of the screening panel process, however, the legislature may have sacrificed the constitutional rights of medical malpractice claimants in favor of a lighter docket. Two recent cases before the Law Court, Smith I and II, have challenged the constitutionality of Maine’s unique statutory approach to the …
Rewriting Hockey's Unwritten Rules: Moore V. Bertuzzi, Patrick K. Thornton
Rewriting Hockey's Unwritten Rules: Moore V. Bertuzzi, Patrick K. Thornton
Maine Law Review
The word “enforcer” or “hockey goon” does not appear in the 2007–2008 National Hockey League (NHL) rulebook. However, every player and coach knows the meaning of those words. Hockey has always had its share of enforcers or “goons” that have protected star players. Steve Moore, former Harvard captain, and his parents have sued NHL tough-man Todd Bertuzzi, the Vancouver Canucks, and the partnership that owned the Canucks for an on-ice incident that occurred between Moore and Bertuzzi on March 8, 2004. Dedicated hockey fans have followed the lawsuit, but with the “incident” now over four years old many have forgotten …
The Unappreciated Importance, For Small Business Defendants, Of The Duty To Settle, Robert Heidt
The Unappreciated Importance, For Small Business Defendants, Of The Duty To Settle, Robert Heidt
Maine Law Review
This paper suggests how the duty to settle, which requires liability insurers to pay damages awarded against their insured in excess of the policy limits when the insurers reject a reasonable settlement offer within the limits, may have indirectly led certain of their insureds--small business recreational vendors like horse riding stables or some motels offering swimming pools with diving boards--to sanitize the recreational activities they offer. More generally, the duty to settle's effect on the lawsuits injured customers brought against small business recreational vendors may have led a wide variety of such vendors to sanitize activities the vendors previously offered …
A Strange Distinction: Charitable Immunity And Clergy Sexual Abuse In Picher V. Roman Catholic Bishop Of Portland, Matthew Cobb
A Strange Distinction: Charitable Immunity And Clergy Sexual Abuse In Picher V. Roman Catholic Bishop Of Portland, Matthew Cobb
Maine Law Review
In 2009, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, decided Picher v. Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland, a case that presented an issue of first impression in Maine: whether the doctrine of charitable immunity protected charitable organizations from liability for intentional torts. The court ultimately held that charitable immunity was not a defense to intentional torts, but that it did bar negligence claims based on the sexual abuse of a minor. In Picher, a majority of the Law Court partly vacated the trial court’s grant of summary judgment for the Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland (Bishop) and …
Has Addy V. Jenkins, Inc. Heightened The Standard For Establishing A Reasonable Inference Of Proximate Cause In Maine?, Denitsa N. Pocheva-Smith
Has Addy V. Jenkins, Inc. Heightened The Standard For Establishing A Reasonable Inference Of Proximate Cause In Maine?, Denitsa N. Pocheva-Smith
Maine Law Review
Suppose the following: A subcontractor is hired by a construction company to dry-wall the outside of a building. The general contractor provides and erects a three-story staging to assist the subcontractor during that process. The staging is installed before the subcontractor is scheduled to start work, but does not contain safety equipment, such as rails, platforms, or ladders, and is not tied to the building. The subcontractor begins work on the building on Monday. On that same day, he falls while ascending the staging. He reports the fall to the general contractor and asks that safety equipment be installed on …
"The Wrong Approach At The Wrong Time?": Maine Adopts Strict Liability For Abnormally Dangerous Activities In Dyer V. Maine Drilling And Blasting, Inc., Matthew M. Cobb
"The Wrong Approach At The Wrong Time?": Maine Adopts Strict Liability For Abnormally Dangerous Activities In Dyer V. Maine Drilling And Blasting, Inc., Matthew M. Cobb
Maine Law Review
In 2009, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, held in Dyer v. Maine Drilling and Blasting, Inc. that strict liability should be applied to abnormally dangerous activities in accordance with the Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 519-20. In doing so, the court expressly overruled its decision in Reynolds v. W.H. Hinman Co., which had rejected a strict liability approach to blasting cases in favor of a negligence-based standard. In Dyer, a majority of the Law Court vacated the trial court’s grant of summary judgment for Maine Drilling and Blasting, Inc. (Maine Drilling) and held that strict …
Constitution Day Lecture: Constitutional Law And Tort Law: Injury, Race, Gender, And Equal Protection, Jennifer B. Wriggins
Constitution Day Lecture: Constitutional Law And Tort Law: Injury, Race, Gender, And Equal Protection, Jennifer B. Wriggins
Maine Law Review
The focus of today’s annual Constitution Day lecture at the University of Maine School of Law is on the Fourteenth Amendment and specifically how the Equal Protection Clause relates to tort law. First, I will talk about the Equal Protection Clause in general—what it says, and some of what it has been held to mean—particularly where government makes distinctions based on race and gender. Second, I will discuss two historical tort cases that violate equal protection on the basis of race. In doing so, I uncover the racial history of tort law that has been hidden in plain sight. I …
Access To Prescription Drugs: A Normative Economic Approach To Pharmacist Conscience Clause Legislation, Joanna K. Sax
Access To Prescription Drugs: A Normative Economic Approach To Pharmacist Conscience Clause Legislation, Joanna K. Sax
Maine Law Review
Over the past several years, many states introduced legislation that protects a pharmacist’s decision to refuse to fill a prescription. Termed “conscience clauses,” these pieces of legislation allow a pharmacist to refuse to fill a prescription because of moral or religious objections without fear of legal repercussions. In 2006, for example, twenty-one states considered legislation that permits pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions; some bills focus on contraception alone, while others are not specific to any one type of medication. Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, and South Dakota have state laws that provide legal protection to pharmacists who refuse to fill …
Estate Of Fortier V. City Of Lewiston: Is Maine's Tort Claims Act Unintelligible?, William I. Olver
Estate Of Fortier V. City Of Lewiston: Is Maine's Tort Claims Act Unintelligible?, William I. Olver
Maine Law Review
In Estate of Fortier v. City of Lewiston, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, was asked to decide if the City of Lewiston was “using” an aircraft under the Maine Tort Claims Act (MTCA) when it chartered a plane from Twin Cities Air Services (Twin Cities) as part of an Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corp (AFJROTC) exercise. Tragically, the pilot and three AFJROTC cadets from Lewiston High School lost their lives when the plane crashed into Barker Mountain shortly after take-off. The families of the students brought suit against Lewiston, in part, alleging negligence …
Tipping The Scales?: Maine Adopts The Continuing Negligent Treatment Doctrine In Baker V. Farrand, Michael P. Beers
Tipping The Scales?: Maine Adopts The Continuing Negligent Treatment Doctrine In Baker V. Farrand, Michael P. Beers
Maine Law Review
In Baker v. Farrand, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, held that for a series of related negligent acts or omissions committed by a health care provider or practitioner, a single cause of action “accrues” under the Maine Health Security Act (hereinafter MHSA) on the date of the last act or omission that contributed to the plaintiff’s injury. Hence, in situations where a physician provides continuing negligent treatment to a patient in which each and every one of the physician’s actions are negligent, the MHSA’s three-year statute of limitations does not begin to run until the …
Obesity Prevention Policies At The Local Level: Tobacco's Lessons, Paul A. Diller
Obesity Prevention Policies At The Local Level: Tobacco's Lessons, Paul A. Diller
Maine Law Review
For at least a decade, commentators have speculated that obesity is the next tobacco, a public health scourge that might nonetheless offer a gold mine to ambitious plaintiffs’ lawyers. Successful lawsuits, as in the tobacco context, might spur the food industry to reform its practices so as to help reduce the alarmingly high national obesity rate. The obesity narrative, however, has not played out accordingly to the same script as tobacco. Relatively quick action by most state legislatures immunized the food industry to tort lawsuits seeking obesity-related damages, and the scant judicial opinions on the issue have skeptically assessed plaintiffs’ …
Reason And Reasonableness: The Necessary Diversity Of The Common Law, Frederic G. Sourgens
Reason And Reasonableness: The Necessary Diversity Of The Common Law, Frederic G. Sourgens
Maine Law Review
This Article addresses the central concept of “reasonableness” in the common law and constitutional jurisprudence. On the basis of three examples, the common law of torts, the common law of contracts, and Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, the Article notes that different areas of the law follow fundamentally inconsistent utilitarian, pragmatic, and formalist reasonableness paradigms. The significance of this diversity of reasonableness paradigms remains largely under-theorized. This Article submits that the diversity of reasonableness paradigms is a necessary feature of the common law. It theorizes that the utilitarian, pragmatic and formalistic paradigms are structural elements driving the common law norm-generation process. This …