Law Commons^™

Implementing War Torts, Rebecca Crootof

Law Faculty Publications

Under the law of armed conflict, no entity is accountable for lawful acts in war that cause harm, and accountability mechanisms for unlawful acts (like war crimes) rarely create a right to compensation for victims. Accordingly, states now regularly create bespoke institutions, like the proposed International Claims Commission for Ukraine, to resolve mass claims associated with international crises. While helpful for specific and politically popular populations, these one-off institutions have limited jurisdiction and thus limited effect. Creating an international “war torts” regime—which would establish route to compensation for civilians harmed in armed conflict—would better address this accountability gap for all …

Where Are The Records? Handling Lost/Destroyed Records In Child Welfare Tort Litigation, Dale Margolin Cecka

Law Faculty Publications

As child welfare professionals, we have all encountered the “missing” record, most often during day-to-day advocacy. For those who practice child welfare tort litigation, incomplete discovery is also common, even though case records can be critical in determining negligence or malfeasance. In other forms of civil litigation, judges are asked to hold parties accountable for losing or destroying records, and juries are allowed to draw negative inferences about the missing evidence. In contrast, an investigation of child welfare torts reveals that when a defending agency fails to produce credible records, the issue is simply not litigated or does not affect …

Fda Regulatory Compliance Reconsidered, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Many observers consider the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) vital for the protection of consumer health and safety. One hundred years ago, Congress established the entity that would become the FDA and authorized it to regulate foods and drugs, critical responsibilities that the agency has long discharged carefully. Throughout the past century, the FDA's regulatory power has expanded systematically, albeit gradually, while legislatures and courts in the fifty American jurisdictions broadened liability exposure for manufacturers that sold defective products that injured consumers. Observers have recently criticized the agency for overseeing pharmaceuticals too leniently, even as states increasingly narrowed manufacturers' liability …

A Reexamination Of The Distinction Between “Loss-Allocating” And “Conduct-Regulating” Rules, Wendy Collins Perdue

Law Faculty Publications

The Louisiana choice of law code is an important effort to codify the best of modem conflicts understanding. I routinely teach it to my conflicts students even though few will practice in Louisiana. I think it quite possible that someday states that have followed more ad hoc judicial codifications may consider adopting the more systematic codification found in Louisiana.

The code's choice of law articles on torts incorporate a distinction, first developed in New York, between tort rules that are conduct-regulating and those that are loss-allocating. This rule is built around the premise that there are two fundamental purposes of …