Law Commons^™

Punitive Compensation, Cortney E. Lollar

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Criminal restitution is a core component of punishment. In its current form, this remedy rarely serves restitution's traditional aim of disgorging a defendant's ill-gotten gains. Instead, courts use this monetary award not only to compensate crime victims for intangible losses, but also to punish the defendant for the moral blameworthiness of her criminal action. Because the remedy does not fit into the definition of what most consider "restitution," this Article advocates for the adoption of a new, additional designation for this prototypically punitive remedy: punitive compensation. Unlike with restitution, courts measure punitive compensation by a victim's losses, not a defendant's …

What Is Criminal Restitution?, Cortney E. Lollar

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

A new form of restitution has become a core aspect of criminal punishment. Courts now order defendants to compensate victims for an increasingly broad category of losses, including emotional and psychological losses and losses for which the defendant was not found guilty. Criminal restitution therefore moves far beyond its traditional purpose of disgorging a defendant's ill-gotten gains. Instead, restitution has become a mechanism of imposing additional punishment. Courts, however, have failed to recognize the punitive nature of restitution and thus enter restitution orders without regard to the constitutional protections that normally attach to criminal proceedings. This Article deploys a novel …

Child Pornography And The Restitution Revolution, Cortney E. Lollar

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Victims of child pornography are now successfully seeking restitution from defendants convicted of watching and trading their images. Restitution in child pornography cases, however, represents a dramatic departure from traditional concepts of restitution. This Article offers the first critique of this restitution revolution. Traditional restitution is grounded in notions of unjust enrichment and seeks to restore the economic status quo between parties by requiring disgorgement of ill-gotten gains. The restitution being ordered in increasing numbers of child pornography cases does not serve this purpose. Instead, child pornography victims are receiving restitution simply for having their images viewed. This royalty-type approach …

Limiting Legal Remedies: An Analysis Of Unclean Hands, T. Leigh Anenson

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Post-Impact Fear Of Pre-Impact Fright, Meg Ellen Phillips

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Loss Of Parental Consortium: Why Kentucky Should Re-Recognize The Claim Outside The Wrongful Death Context, Collin D. Schueler

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The term "consortium" has been defined as "[t]he benefits that one person . . . is entitled to receive from another, including companionship, cooperation, affection, aid, [and] financial support." Under Kentucky law, "[e]ither a wife or husband may recover damages against a third person for loss of consortium, resulting from a negligent or wrongful act of such third person.” Furthermore, "[in] a wrongful death action in which the decedent was a minor child, the surviving parent, or parents, may recover for loss of affection and companionship that would have been derived from such child during its minority…” In Giuliani v. …

Tell Me What You Eat, And I Will Tell Whom To Sue: Big Trouble Ahead For “Big Food"?, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Overweight consumers are seeking damages from purveyors of fast food for obesity-related health problems. Plaintiffs claim that products that are high in fat, sugar, salt and cholesterol are defective. Other potential liability theories include product category liability, failure to warn, failure to disclose nutritional information, deceptive advertising, and negligent marketing. However, in order to prevail at trial, plaintiffs must overcome problems with causation, duty and proximate cause, shifting responsibility, federal preemption, comparative fault, and assumption of risk. If such litigation is successful, it may induce fast-food companies to produce healthier products. Nevertheless, this Article concludes that the problem of obesity, …

Reconsidering The Reliance Interest, Christopher W. Frost

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This essay discusses the place of Fuller and Perdue's The Reliance Interest in Contract Damages in the contracts classroom. After first describing my use of The Reliance Interest, I will set out what I consider to be the pedagogical benefits of beginning the course with remedies and the attractiveness of Fuller and Perdue's analytical model in conveying an understanding of the remedial structure. Next, I will discuss the views of critics Craswell, Kelly and Barnes. Finally, I will revisit the place of Fuller and Perdue's work in the contracts course in light of these criticisms.

Indirect Causation: A Reminder From The Biblical Goring Ox Rule For Fraud On The Market Securities Litigation, Andrew R. Simmonds

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Mass Tort Litigation: Congress's Silent, But Deadly, Reform Effort, Mary J. Davis

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This article explores the ways in which The Common Sense Product Liability and Legal

Reform Act (“Act”) treats mass tort litigation issues. The Act does so both directly and indirectly. The direct methods of reform are mostly industry-specific and, thus, almost inconsequential in contrast to the indirect treatment. The indirect, almost clandestine, methods of reform are the most insidious and provide the most cause for concern as Congress once again attempts to "reform" products liability by reintroducing the Act in 1997. Given the President's early indication that a reform measure could meet with his approval, but that this one in …

An Insurance-Based Compensation System For Product-Related Injuries, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In recent years, an increasing number of commentators have begun to express doubts about the effectiveness of the tort system. According to these critics, tort law does not deter accidents, nor does it spread accident costs efficiently. Worst of all, the tort system is extremely expensive to operate. Some of this criticism has spilled over into the products liability area. Products liability law has been condemned as expensive, ineffective, and regressive; in addition, it has been blamed for higher product prices, foreign competition, problems within the liability insurance industry, corporate bankruptcies, lack of product development, and the removal of useful …

The Future Of Fair Housing Litigation, Robert G. Schwemm

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This article is a revised version of the keynote address I gave at a conference entitled "Where is Fair Housing Headed in This Decade?" sponsored by The John Marshall Law School in the Fall of 1992. As its title implies, the conference focused on the future of fair housing, and my address dealt with certain developments that I felt were not only observable in the early years of the 1990s, but were also likely to be important in the remaining years of this decade.

Many of these developments—such as the growing role of the federal government in fair housing enforcement …

Article Two Warranties In Commercial Transactions: An Update, Kathryn L. Moore, Debra L. Goetz, Douglas E. Perry, David S. Rabb

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In 1978 the Cornell Law Review published a Special Project devoted to Article Two commercial warranties. Nine years have since elapsed, and we have decided to update and reassess this important area of the law. We have discovered that although judicial treatment of many aspects of Article Two warranty law has remained stable, in some instances the courts' treatment has progressed and in other instances it has become unclear. This Special Project is our attempt to assemble these changes, interpret the progress, and suggest new lines of analysis to clarify areas of conflict.

Apportionment In Kentucky After Comparative Negligence, John M. Rogers

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Adoption of comparative negligence gives juries the task of allocating fault between a plaintiff and a defendant when both were negligent and both caused the plaintiff's injury. A logical corollary must be that juries are theoretically and practically able to make such an allocation. If so, it follows that juries are able to make such an allocation among multiple defendants, each of whom was found to be both negligent and a cause of the plaintiff's injury. The judicial adoption of comparative negligence in Kentucky therefore requires a reexamination of the rules applicable to multiple tortfeasors. Cases decided since the adoption …

Retribution And Deterrence: The Role Of Punitive Damages In Products Liability Litigation, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Punitive damages constitute an award to an injured party above what is necessary to compensate for actual loss. This Article considers whether punitive damages are an effective means of promoting the goals of products liability law. Section I traces the use of punitive damages in products liability litigation from the early 1960's to the present time. Section II examines the traditional rationales for punitive damages and considers whether they are appropriate in the products liability context. Finally, Section III evaluates some of the measures that commentators have proposed to adapt more fully the concept of punitive damages to products liability …

Design For Challenge: The Kentucky Statute Of Repose For Improvements To Real Property, Jayne Moore

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Accounting For Inflation And Other Productivity Factors When Calculating Lost Future Earning Capacity, Alexander M. Waldrop

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Comparative Negligence Checklist To Avoid Future Unnecessary Litigation, John M. Rogers, Randy Donald Shaw

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Systems of comparative negligence, whereby the negligence of a plaintiff serves to reduce rather than to preclude tort recovery in negligence, have been adopted in thirty-nine states. The common law rule that contributory negligence is an absolute bar to recovery is still the law in Kentucky, although modified by the doctrine of "last clear chance." Kentucky may soon join the trend toward comparative negligence, however. In the last legislative session, bills to adopt comparative negligence were introduced in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. A hearing on this subject was held by the Interim Judiciary and Civil Procedure …

Compensatory Damages In Federal Fair Housing Cases, Robert G. Schwemm

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The federal fair housing laws became effective in 1968. Since then, courts have often awarded damages to victims of housing discrimination, but their decisions have provided little guidance for assessing the amount of such awards. There is a great range of awards, with some courts awarding only nominal damages of $1 and others setting awards of over $20,000. Compounding the problem is the difficulty of measuring the principal element of damages claimed by most plaintiffs in fair housing cases, noneconomic emotional harm or other forms of intangible injury.

Rarely is the basis for the amount of the court's award satisfactorily …

Kentucky Law Survey: Torts, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This issue of the Survey of Kentucky tort law includes recent decisions on false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and products liability. The first case, Consolidated Sales Co. v. Malone, held that Kentucky's shoplifter detention statute authorized a personal search of suspected shoplifters by store personnel. In the second case, Eigelbach v. Watts, the Kentucky Supreme Court adhered to its longstanding rule that physical impact was essential to an action for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Finally, in the third decision, McMichael v. American Red Cross, the Court, utilizing the Restatement's “unavoidably unsafe” rationale, refused to impose …

Survey Of Czechoslovak Laws Affecting East-West Trade, Stephen J. Vasek Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Between 1960 and 1967 all of the major codes of Czechoslovak laws were redrafted. The culminating work in the redrafting process was the New Economic Model (NEM) which became effective in January, 1967. Under the NEM, allocation of resources and trade decisions were to be made primarily on the basis of profitability. The key to the implementation of the profit motive was the new market price system, under which prices were eventually to be determined by supply and demand rather than set by administrative fiat. Bonuses were to be paid workers and managers based upon the profitability of their enterprise. …

Libel Per Quod In Florida, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The purpose of this article is to trace the development of the rules of defamation with particular reference to extrinsic fact. A defamatory communication is one that tends to diminish the esteem, respect, good will, or confidence in which a person is held or to excite adverse, derogatory, or unpleasant feelings or opinions against him. To be actionable under the modem law, however, the defendant's statement must be capable of a defamatory meaning in the sense normally understood.

Defamation consists of the separate torts of libel and slander. Historically, these torts evolved independently of each other, and as a result …

The Collateral Source Rule And Personal Injury Damages: The Irrelevant Principle And The Functional Approach, Part I, Robert Allen Sedler

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Collateral Source Rule And Personal Injury Damages: The Irrelevant Principle And The Functional Approach, Part Ii, Robert Allen Sedler

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Criteria Employed By Appellate Courts In Determining Adequacy Of Damages, Philip B. Austin

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Income Taxation And Damages For Personal Injuries, Marshall P. Eldred Jr.

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Measuring Damages For Tort Harms To Realty, Howard Downing

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Application Of The Cost And Value Theories In Measuring Contractor's Liability, William M. Dishman Jr.

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Damages--Tortfeasor Not Liable For Medical And Hospital Services Supplied By Plaintiff's Employer Under Insurance Plan Where Plaintiff Incurred No Expense--Sedlock V. Trosper, Norris W. Reigler

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Damages--Some Situations In Which The Plaintiff Is Not Required To Minimize Damages, James E. Adkins

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.