Law Commons^™

The Deep Architecture Of American Covid-19 Tort Reform 2020-21, Anthony J. Sebok

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The rapid emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic produced massive state actions to protect in public health through the exercise of the police powers by local, state and national governments. In the United States there were calls early in the crisis to exercise the state’s power over tort law: As early as April 2020, the American Tort Reform Association published a White Paper, Responding to the Coming Lawsuit Surge that called for “reasonable constraints on . . . lawsuits that pose an obstacle to the coronavirus response effort, place businesses in jeopardy, and further damage the economy.”

This article, prepared for …

Artificial Intelligence In Health Care: Applications And Legal Implications, W. Nicholson Price Ii

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly moving to change the healthcare system. Driven by the juxtaposition of big data and powerful machine learning techniques—terms I will explain momentarily—innovators have begun to develop tools to improve the process of clinical care, to advance medical research, and to improve efficiency. These tools rely on algorithms, programs created from healthcare data that can make predictions or recommendations. However, the algorithms themselves are often too complex for their reasoning to be understood or even stated explicitly. Such algorithms may be best described as “black-box.” This article briefly describes the concept of AI in medicine, including …

Value Hypocrisy And Policy Sincerity: A Food Law Case Study, Joshua Galperin

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It is tempting to say that in 2017 there is a unique problem of hypocrisy in politics, where words and behaviors are so often in opposition. In fact, hypocrisy is nothing new. A robust legal and psychological literature on the importance of procedural justice demonstrates a longstanding concern with developing more just governing processes. One of the important features of this scholarship is that it does not focus only on the consequences of policymaking, in which behaviors, but not words, are relevant. Instead, it respects the intrinsic importance of fair process, lending credence not only to votes but also to …

European Legal Development: The Case Of Tort: Comparative Studies In The Development Of The Law Of Tort In Europe, Vol 9, Anthony Sebok

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This review addresses volumes 7-9 of the series Comparative Studies in the Development of the Law of Torts in Europe, edited by John Bell and David Ibbetson and published by Cambridge University Press.

Tortifying Retaliation: Protected Activity At The Intersection Of Fault, Duty, And Causation, Deborah L. Brake

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In University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, the Supreme Court broke its string of plaintiff victories in the eight retaliation cases it has decided since 2005. In its 2013 decision in that case, the Court rejected a mixed motive framework for Title VII’s retaliation provision, a part of the statute that Congress did not amend in 1991 when it adopted the motivating factor standard for proving discrimination under Title VII. For help construing what “because of” means in the retaliation claim, the Court looked to tort law, which it read as requiring plaintiffs to prove but-for causation …

Tort Liability In The Age Of The Helicopter Parent, Elizabeth G. Porter

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Discussions of parental liability by courts and legal scholars are often tinged with fear: fear that government interference will chill parental autonomy; fear that parents will be held liable for their children’s every misdeed; and, recently, fear that a new generation of so-called “helicopter parents” who hover over their children’s every move will establish unrealistically high legal standards for parenting. However, in the context of common law suits against parents, these fears are misguided. To the contrary, courts have consistently shielded wealthier parents — those most likely to be defendants in civil suits — from exposure to liability for conduct …

Mass Torts And Universal Jurisdiction, Vivian Grosswald Curran

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The technologies of the present era mean that injuries have become more massive in dimension. Mass torts affect greater numbers of people and larger geographical areas. Consequently, they can cross borders, affecting the populations of multiple countries. One of the two mechanisms in tort law for remedying mass catastrophes. restricted to cases involving jus cogens violations (namely, violations of human rights so grave as to be against international customary law, or the "law of nations"), is universal jurisdiction pursuant to the Alien Tort Statute (ATS).

Despite the distinctive official restriction of universal jurisdiction to the criminal law domain in civilian …

The Persistence Of Proximate Cause: How Legal Doctrine Thrives On Skepticism, Jessie Allen

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This Article starts with a puzzle: Why is the doctrinal approach to “proximate cause” so resilient despite longstanding criticism? Proximate cause is a particularly extreme example of doctrine that limps along despite near universal consensus that it cannot actually determine legal outcomes. Why doesn’t that widely recognized indeterminacy disable proximate cause as a decision-making device? To address this puzzle, I pick up a cue from the legal realists, a group of skeptical lawyers, law professors, and judges, who, in the 1920s and 1930s, compared legal doctrine to ritual magic. I take that comparison seriously, perhaps more seriously, and definitely in …

Private Equity's Three Lessons For Agency Theory, William Wilson Bratton

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No abstract provided.

Corporate Judgement Proofing: A Response To Lynn Lopucki's 'The Death Of Liability', James J. White

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In "The Death of Liability" Professor Lynn M. LoPucki argues that American businesses are rendering themselves judgment proof.- Using the metaphor of a poker game, Professor LoPucki claims American businesses are increasingly able to participate in the poker game without putting "chips in the pot." He argues that it has become easier for American companies to play the game without having chips in the pot because of the ease with which a modern debtor can grant secured credit, because of the growth of the peculiar form of sale known as asset securitization, because foreign havens for secreting assets are now …

All Along The Watchtower: Economic Loss In Tort (The Idaho Case Law), Dale Goble

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No abstract provided.

Of Defamation And Decisionmaking: Wiemer V. Rankin And The Abdication Of Appellate Responsibility, Dale Goble

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No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Inflation On The Law Of Obligations In Argentina, Brazil, Chile And Uruguay, Keith S. Rosenn

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No abstract provided.

Incidental Injuries From Exercise Of Lawful Rights, Thomas M. Cooley

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In the present paper those cases will be considered in which one person suffers an injury in consequence of the exercise by another person of his legal rights. Many such cases occur in which, although the injury may be severe, the law will award no compensation, there being no tort in the case because there is an absence of that wrong the concurrence of which with damage is essential to an action. Negligence might supply the wrong, but we now speak of cases of which that is not an element.

Incidental Injuries From Exercise Of Lawful Rights, Thomas M. Cooley

Articles

In the present paper those cases will be considered in which one person suffers an injury in consequence of the exercise by another person of his legal rights. Many such cases occur in which, although the injury may be severe, the law will award no compensation, there being no tort in the case because there is an absence of that wrong the concurrence of which with damage is essential to an action. Negligence might supply the wrong, but we now speak of cases of which that is not an element.

Of The Right To Waive A Tort And Sue In Assumpsit, Thomas M. Cooley

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The distinctions between an action for a tort and one upon contract are such that where the one will lie the other generally will not; but there are nevertheless some cases in which either may be brought at the election of the party injured. Thus, it is sometimes the case, that, in a business relation, the law makes it the duty of a party to observe a certain course of conduct with regard to the rights of others, where by contract he has also undertaken for the same thing; and in such a case a breach of duty is coincident …

Of The Right To Waive A Tort And Sue In Assumpsit, Thomas M. Cooley

Articles

The distinctions between an action for a tort and one upon contract are such that where the one will lie the other generally will not; but there are nevertheless some cases in which either may be brought at the election of the party injured. Thus, it is sometimes the case, that, in a business relation, the law makes it the duty of a party to observe a certain course of conduct with regard to the rights of others, where by contract he has also undertaken for the same thing; and in such a case a breach of duty is coincident …