Law Commons^™

Constitutional Wrongs And Common Law Principles: The Case For The Recognition Of State Constitutional Tort Actions Against State Governments, T. Hunter Jefferson

Vanderbilt Law Review

Imagine an individual whose friend has allowed him to stay in a bedroom of his trailer home. This individual brings his most treasured and personal possessions along with him. Two police officers, after receiving information of potential criminal activity from an informant, enter the trailer without a warrant. Instead of obtaining a warrant, the officers solicit the consent of a third party and ransack the bedroom-leaving it in complete disarray. They find no evidence of the alleged criminal wrongdoing and seize no property. Although the police do not arrest the individual, they have humiliated him and have invaded his privacy. …

Reconceptualizing Strict Liability In Tort: An Overview, Martin A. Kotler

Vanderbilt Law Review

In a series of books and articles, Professor Marshall Shapo has developed the idea of American tort law as a "cultural mirror"--a legal system reflecting cultural norms that serves as the "intellectual and practical foundation for society's response to injuries." The "cultural mirror" metaphor captures both the notion that there is a substantive normative basis for tort law that exists within society and the procedural notion that tort law ensures that those underlying norms are reflected in the resolution of tort disputes.

Although I believe Professor Shapo's description to be fundamentally correct, it is also incomplete, and, as a result, …