Law Commons^™

Torts, Deron R. Hicks, Jacob E. Daly

Mercer Law Review

• Dog Bite
• Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
• Premises Liability
• Carriers
• Products Liability
• Bovine Jurisprudence

The Floodgates Of Strict Liability: Bursting Reservoirs And The Adoption Of Fletcher V. Rylands In The Guided Age, Jed Handelsman Shugerman

Faculty Scholarship

Part I presents an overview of Rylands v. Fletcher and then discusses the phases of the American response: the initial acceptance; the Northeastern rejections in the 1870s, which have been the basis for the erroneous scholarly conclusions; and the overlooked tide of acceptances across the country, beginning in the late 1880s and increasing in the 1890s. Part II places this wave of acceptance in its historical context of changing social forces, although these brief sketches are not the primary emphasis of this Note. First, during a period of rapid urbanization, a small number of courts sought to protect residential areas …

Rational Actors Or Rational Fools - The Implications Of Psychology For Products Liability: Introduction, Carl T. Bogus

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Food Lion As Reform Or Revolution: "Publication Damages" And First Amendment Scrutiny, Susan M. Gilles

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Product-Related Risk And Cognitive Biases: The Shortcomings Of Enterprise Liability, James A. Henderson Jr., Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Products liability law has witnessed a long debate over whether manufacturers should be held strictly liable for the injuries that products cause. Recently, some have argued that psychological research on human judgment supports adopting a regime of strict enterprise liability for injuries caused by product design. These new proponents of enterprise liability argue that the current system, in which manufacturer liability for product design turns on the manufacturer's negligence, allows manufacturers to induce consumers into undertaking inefficiently dangerous levels or types of consumption. In this paper we argue that the new proponents of enterprise liability have: (1) not provided any …

Products Liability: User Misconduct Defenses, David G. Owen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Fundamental Protection Of A Fundamental Right: Full Recovery Of Child-Rearing Damages For Wrongful Pregnancy, Patricia Baugher

Washington Law Review

The U. S. Constitution and Washington statutes protect the right to choose not to have a child as a fundamental right. When a healthy child is born after contraceptive methods fail due to physician negligence, parents can sue on a "wrongful pregnancy" cause of action. In all jurisdictions recognizing wrongful pregnancy, parents may recover damages for medical expenses associated with pregnancy and childbirth. A controversy exists, however, concerning whether parents may recover the ordinary expenses of child rearing. While some states allow full recovery of these expenses, and other states allow recovery of the economic expense offset by the emotional …

Regulating Corporate Human Rights Abuses: Is Unocal The Answer?, Pia Zara Thadhani

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sexual Harassment, Prostitution, And The Tort Of Abusive Discharge: An Analysis And Evaluation Of Recent Legal Developments, John A. Gray

Buffalo Women's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Fostering Mutual Respect And Cooperation Between State Courts And State Legislatures: A Sound Alternative To A Tort Tug Of War, Victor E. Schwartz, Mark A. Behrens, Monica G. Parham

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Recovery Of Medical Monitoring Costs: An Argument For The Fund Mechanism In The Wake Of Bower V. Westinghouse, Shannon L. Smith Wolfe

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

What's Half A Lung Worth? Civil Jurors' Accounts Of Their Award Decision Making, Nicole L. Mott, Valerie P. Hans, Lindsay Simpson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Jury awards are often criticized as being arbitrary and excessive. This paper speaks to that controversy, reporting data from interviews with civil jurors' accounts of the strategies that juries use and the factors that they consider in arriving at a collective award. Jurors reported difficulty in deciding on awards, describing it as "the hardest part" of jury service and were surprised the court did not provide more guidance to them. Relatively few jurors entered the jury deliberation room with a specified award figure in mind. Once in the deliberation room, however, they reported discussing a variety of relevant factors such …

States Starting To Offer Legal Protection For Apology, Richard C. Reuben

Faculty Publications

There is a small trend a-foot in the state legislatures, and a welcome one at that: Providing some legal protection for people who want to apologize for their role in a harm, but who are fearful because of the possibility that their apologies will later be used against them in legal proceedings.

Mail-Order Gun Kits And Fingerprint-Resistant Pistols: Why Washington Courts Should Impose A Duty On Gun Manufacturers To Market Firearms Responsibly, Amy Edwards

Washington Law Review

Plaintiffs have historically been unsuccessful in suing gun manufacturers for injuries inflicted by the criminal acts of third parties. Until recently, with one exception, courts uniformly found no basis for liability under either strict liability or general negligence claims. In three recent cases, however, courts have imposed a duty under negligent-marketing theories. These theories have yet to be tested in Washington. This Comment examines the potential viability of a lawsuit by victims of gun violence against gun manufacturers for negligent marketing in Washington. It ultimately concludes that Washington courts can and should impose a duty on gun manufacturers to refrain …

Liability Without Cause? Further Ruminations On Cause-In-Fact As Applied To Handgun Liability, Aaron Twerski, A. J. Sebok

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Application Of Product Liability Principles To Publishers Of Violent Or Sexually Explicit Material, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

There have been a number of tragic incidents during the past few years in which mentally unstable teenagers have carried guns into school and shot teachers and fellow students. These schoolyard killings have generated an intense debate about the problem of violence in our society. Some social commentators have attributed teenage violence to the widespread availability of firearms, while others blame parental neglect, lack of discipline in the schools, or the declining influence of religion and morality in contemporary culture. However, another source of concern is the popular media, which stands accused of purveying sex and violence on a massive …

Plotting The Return Of An Ancient Tort To Cyberspace: Towards A New Federal Standard Of Responsibility For Defamation For Internet Service Providers, Christopher Butler

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Though the rapid development of the Internet has created a fertile ground for legal innovation, more often than not legislators and courts have sought to address this relatively new medium by attempting to squeeze it into precedents and paradigms better suited to older forms of communication, technology, and media. Part I of this article looks back at the courts' initial efforts at addressing defamation via the Internet. From the start the courts attempted to fit the role of the ISP into the common law's categorizing of print media as either "publishers" or "distributors" of information. One court's misstep in overextending …

Limiting Tort Liability For Online Third-Party Content Under Section 230 Of The Communications Act, Jonathan A. Friedman, Francis M. Buono

Federal Communications Law Journal

Section 230 of the Communications Act provides online service providers (OSPs) with immunity from liability for harms arising from third-party content that is made available through an OSP's services. Some courts have recently held that section 230 immunity covers not only defamation but any tort claim that would make an OSP liable for information originating from the OSP's users or commercial partners. This Article argues that section 230 has been properly interpreted by the courts and that, contrary to the claims of critics, those decisions have not created a disincentive for OSPs aggressively to monitor their sites for defamatory or …

When Is A Teacher Or School Liable In Negligence?, Helen Newnham

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The law is increasing affecting the practice of education. The most likely reason a teacher or school will face legal action is in negligence where a student has been injured while under the school’s protection. This may occur in a variety of settings. To satisfy the elements of the tort of negligence the student who becomes in law the plaintiff must prove that a duty of care was owed, that the duty was breached, by not maintaining the appropriate standard and that the injury was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of that breach of duty. It would be rare for a …

Rational Actors Or Rational Fools? The Implications Of Psychology For Products Liability, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Brownfields Of Dreams In The Old Dominion: Redeveloping Brownfields In Virginia, Philip Carter Strother

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

"Are We There Yet?": Towards A New Rule For Choice Of Law In Tort, Janet Walker

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The Supreme Court's effort to establish certainty in this area by basing a firm rule on a clear theory has failed. The intention was laudable but the proposed theory bore little relation to the courts' adjudicative concerns; and the rule sometimes produced injustice, prompting courts to circumvent it. This article considers the brief history of choice of law in tort and recent developments in common law and civil law jurisdictions, and suggests a new theory and a new rule (based on principles of tort law rather than public international law) which are likely to increase certainty by promoting fairness.

Whipped By Whiplash? The Challenges Of Jury Communication In Lawsuits Involving Connective Tissue Injury, Valerie P. Hans, Nicole Vadino

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Intuition And Technology In Product Design Litigation: An Essay On Proximate Causation, James A. Henderson Jr., Aaron Twerski

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Need For A Third Conflicts Restatement (And A Proposal For Tort Conflicts), Symeon C. Symeonides

Indiana Law Journal

Symposium: Preparing for the Next Century-A New Restatement of Conflicts?

Pulliam V. Coastal Emergency Services Of Richmond, Inc.: Reconsidering The Standard Of Review And Constitutionality Of Virginia's Medical Malpractice, Elizabeth Keith

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Consider the following scenario. A plaintiff is injured in a devastating automobile accident and a jury finds the other driver negligent. As a result of that driver's negligence, the plaintiff is now a quadriplegic. The jury, after careful deliberation and calculation, awards $4.5 million to the plaintiff consisting of both economic damages for past and future medical expenses, as well as non-economic damages for pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life. Now consider a similar scenario. The plaintiff is a patient who is injured during a low-risk surgical procedure and a jury finds the surgeon negligent. As a …

Suing States For Money: Constitutional Remedies After Alden And Florida Prepaid, Michael Wells

Scholarly Works

On June 23, 1999, the Supreme Court handed down three noteworthy decisions bearing on the law of constitutional remedies. Alden v. Maine struck down an attempt by Congress, acting under its Article I powers, to subject states to suits in state court on federal statutory grounds. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank curbed Congress' power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to authorize suits against state governments on constitutional grounds, reasoning that a case cannot be made for the federal cause of action unless state law remedies are inadequate. A companion case, College Savings Bank …

Another Brick In The Wall: An Empirical Look At Georgia Tort Litigation In The 1990s, Thomas A. Eaton, Susette M. Talarico, Richard E. Dunn

Scholarly Works

It has been four years since we prepared our first profile of tort litigation in Georgia.

It is against this backdrop that we undertook to update and expand upon our original research. We have updated our study by collecting data from tort cases filed in the superior courts of Bibb, Gwinnett, Irwin, and Oconee counties between 1994 and 1997. Thus, for these four counties we now have data regarding the filing and disposition of tort cases for an eight-year period. We also have collected data from tort cases filed in Cobb and Fulton County superior courts between 1994 and 1997. …

Intervention In Public Law Litigation: The Environmental Paradigm, Peter A. Appel

Scholarly Works

Litigation which Chayes labeled “public law litigation” grew especially quickly in the decade immediately before Chayes wrote his article. This growth was due, in no small part, to the 1966 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. These amendments introduced a more transactional approach to litigation and made the rules concerning party structure more flexible. In particular, the amendments modified Rule 19, which governs joinder of nonparties by the parties to the suit; Rule 23, which governs class action lawsuits; and Rule 24, which governs intervention by nonparties into ongoing litigation. Using the jurisprudence that has developed concerning intervention …

“Waive” Goodbye To Tort Liability: A Proposal To Remove Paternalism From Product Sales Transactions, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article argues that waivers of tort liability should be permitted in connection with product sales. Currently, sellers cannot limit their liability under tort law for personal injuries caused by defective products even though such waivers are allowed, albeit reluctantly, under principles of negligence and warranty law. Existing principles of products liability law should be modified, either by legislation or by court action, to allow at least limited use of these waivers.