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Full-Text Articles in Law
Learning The Wrong Lessons From "An American Tragedy", David Bernstein
Learning The Wrong Lessons From "An American Tragedy", David Bernstein
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
This paper is a critique of Margaret Berger and Aaron Twerski, “Uncertainty and Informed Choice: Unmasking Daubert,” forthcoming in the Michigan Law Review. Berger and Twerski propose that courts recognize a cause of action that would allow plaintiffs who claim injury from pharmaceutical products, but who do not have sufficient evidence to prove causation, to recover damages for deprivation of informed choice. Berger and Twerski claim inspiration from the litigation over allegations that the morning sickness drug Bendectin caused birth defects.
Considering the criteria Berger and Twerski suggest for their proposed cause of action in the context of Bendectin, it …
Learning The Wrong Lessons From "An American Tragedy": A Critique Of The Berger-Twerski Informed Choice Proposal, David E. Bernstein
Learning The Wrong Lessons From "An American Tragedy": A Critique Of The Berger-Twerski Informed Choice Proposal, David E. Bernstein
George Mason University School of Law Working Papers Series
This paper is a critique of Margaret Berger and Aaron Twerski, “Uncertainty and Informed Choice: Unmasking Daubert”, forthcoming the Michigan Law Review. Berger and Twerski propose that courts recognize a cause of action that would allow plaintiffs who claim injury from pharmaceutical products, but who do not have sufficient evidence to prove causation, to recover damages for deprivation of informed choice. Berger and Twerski claim inspiration from the litigation over allegations that the morning sickness drug Bendectin caused birth defects. Considering the criteria Berger and Twerski suggest for their proposed cause of action in the context of Bendectin, it appears …
The Challenge To The Individual Causation Requirement In Mass Products Torts, Donald G. Gifford
The Challenge To The Individual Causation Requirement In Mass Products Torts, Donald G. Gifford
Faculty Scholarship
This article uses the example of mass products torts to test the traditional principle that requires a specific victim to prove that a particular injurer caused her harm in order to establish tort liability. Proponents of the instrumentalist conception of torts, notably those identified with law and economics such as Calabresi and Posner, view any requirement of individualized causation as “old-fashioned” and inconsistent with their goals of achieving loss minimization and loss distribution or wealth maximization. In contrast, corrective justice theorists, such as Ernest Weinrib, argue that particularized causation is intrinsic to the entire notion of tort liability. The judicial …
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 …
The Biter Bit: Unknowable Dangers, The Third Restatement, And The Reinstatement Of Liability Without Fault, Ellen Wertheimer
The Biter Bit: Unknowable Dangers, The Third Restatement, And The Reinstatement Of Liability Without Fault, Ellen Wertheimer
Working Paper Series
This article argues that the Third Restatement of Products Liability, far from accomplishing its goal of eliminating strict liability for products, actually caused its revival. Prior to the adoption of the Third Restatement, many jurisdictions had gradually retreated from the strict products liability of Section 402A of the Second Restatement of Torts. The Third Restatement caused the courts to confront their own incremental processes and, in refusing the adopt the Third Restatement, to reinstate Section 402A of the Second Restatement in a much purer form.