Law Commons^™

A Simple Model Of Torts And Moral Wrongs, Steven Schaus

Notre Dame Law Review

According to the “standard model” of torts and moral wrongs—the model implicit in leading moral theories of tort law—tort law imposes genuine duties that are distinct from, and only roughly coincide with, our preexisting moral duties. A “tort,” on this model, is a distinctive kind of wrong, the breach of a tort-generated duty. In this Article, I suggest that moral theories of tort law start with a simpler story—one that dispenses with a distinct domain of tort-generated duties. According to what I call the “simple model” of torts and moral wrongs, tort law aims to recognize and respond directly to …

The Duty Not To Continue Distributing Your Own Libels, Eugene Volokh

Notre Dame Law Review

Say something I wrote about you online (in a newspaper, a blog, or a social media page) turns out to be false and defamatory. Assume I wasn’t culpable when I first posted it, but now I’m on notice of the error.

Am I liable for defamation if I fail to remove or correct the erroneous material? Surprisingly, courts haven’t settled on an answer, and scholars haven’t focused on the question. Libel law is stuck in a time when newspapers left the publisher’s control as soon as they are printed—even though now an article or a post can be seen on …