Law Commons^™

Civil Liability Claims Arising From Torts In The English Law:, Younis Salah Eddin Ali

UAEU Law Journal

The claims to civil liability in tort are considered as legal defensive methods aimed at negating or attenuating the civil liability of the defendant, if he succeeds in raising them within the action in liability in tort. It is worth-bearing in mind that these claims originated within the law of tort, which is regarded as a customary unwritten law, based upon judicial precedents issued by English courts, it is also worth-mentioning that these claims are classified in the English law into two types: the first are absent-element defenses. The second are affirmative defenses. Whereas both the Iraqi civil law, No.40of …

A Perfect Storm: Race, Ethnicity, Hate Speech, Libel And First Amendment Jurisprudence, Michael J. Cole

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

The New "Web-Stream" Of Commerce: Amazon And The Necessity Of Strict Products Liability For Online Marketplaces, Margaret E. Dillaway

Vanderbilt Law Review

Technology company Amazon has actively transformed into an e-commerce giant over the last two decades. Once a simple online bookstore, Amazon now boasts an ever-expanding identity as global cloud computing provider, major player in artificial intelligence, brick-and-mortar grocery store, and producer of original video content. At its roots, the company remains focused on e-commerce—its multibillion-dollar online marketplace hosts a massive digital space for commerce worldwide where customers can order “anything, with a capital A.”

Amazon derives many of its sales from third-party vendors who list products on the company’s website, Amazon.com. In this broadening chain of distribution for online retail, …

Tort Immunity In The Pandemic, Betsy J. Grey, Samantha Orwoll

Indiana Law Journal

The Covid-19 pandemic set off a public health emergency that quickly brought doctors and other health care providers to the front line, while shuttering businesses throughout the United States. In response to the emergency, the federal and state governments rapidly created broad protections from tort liability for health care providers. To encourage businesses to reopen, some states have also provided liability protection for businesses from personal injury suits brought by patrons and employees. Congress is considering similar protections for businesses as it contemplates further aid packages. Some industries, like nursing homes and universities, are lobbying for specific immunity. This Essay …

Making Preconception Tort Theory Crisper, Mark Strasser

Marquette Law Review

More and more individuals seeking to expand their families make use of

someone else’s gametes to help create a child. Unsurprisingly, those

considering the use of donated or purchased gametes often seek reassurance

that the use of those gametes will not create an increased risk that a child

thereby produced will have a severe disease. Sometimes, because of negligence

or recklessness, gametes are used that result in children having severe disease

where that outcome would have been avoided though the use of reasonable

care. Regrettably, courts addressing whether liability may be imposed in such

cases have sometimes misunderstood and misapplied …

The Burdens Of All: Progressive Origins Of Accident Cost Socialization In Tort Law, 1870-1920, Joseph A. Ranney

Marquette Law Review

Scholars who have studied the Progressive Movement’s contributions to

American law have paid little attention to its impact on tort law. This Article

helps fill the gap by examining the ways in which Progressivism shaped the rise

of employer liability law, workers compensation, and comparative negligence

during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The Article places

these reforms within the broader social history of American tort law—a

gradual, often tortuous transition from free-labor beliefs that the law should

encourage personal responsibility and economic growth above all else to a

realization that injuries are an unavoidable cost of economic modernization,

accompanied by …

Choice Of Law And The Preponderantly Multistate Rule: The Example Of Successor Corporation Products Liability, Diana Sclar

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Most state rules of substantive law, whether legislative or judicial, ordinarily adjust rights and obligations among local parties with respect to local events. Conventional choice of law methodologies for adjudicating disputes with multistate connections all start from an explicit or implicit assumption of a choice between such locally oriented substantive rules. This article reveals, for the first time, that some state rules of substantive law ordinarily adjust rights and obligations with respect to parties and events connected to more than one state and only occasionally apply to wholly local matters. For these rules I use the term “nominally domestic rules …

Designing Children: Tort Liability For Medical Providers In The Era Of Crispr/Cas-9 Geneticc Editing, Sarah Roa

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Close, But No Cigar: Issues With Louisiana Revised Statutes § 9:2800.27 And The Collateral Source Rule, Andrew G. Jarreau

Louisiana Law Review

The article discusses issues on the collateral source rule in Louisiana, the ruling by the state Supreme Court in the case Bozeman v. State, and why the state's Revised Statutes  9:2800.27 contradicts the policy behind tort recovery.

Illuminating False Light: Assessing The Case For The False Light Tort In Canada, Fraser Duncan

Dalhousie Law Journal

The false light tort has been the most contentious of the four privacy torts recognized in many US states, receiving criticism for its uncertain connection to privacy interests, its overlap with defamation and its chilling effect on free speech. While the tort has not previously received much judicial or scholarly attention in Canada, the recent decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Yenovkian v Gulian recognized false light as a cause of action in the province. This article cautions other Canadian common law courts against following suit through an analysis of the nature, history, and criticisms of the …

Seeking (Some) Climate Justice In State Tort Law, Karen C. Sokol

Washington Law Review

Over the last decade, an increasing number of path-breaking cases have been filed throughout the world, seeking to hold fossil fuel industry companies and governments accountable for their actions and inactions that have contributed to the climate crisis. This Article focuses on an important subset of those cases—namely, the recent surge of cases brought by states, cities, and counties all over the United States alleging that the largest fossil fuel industry actors, including ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, and Chevron, are liable in state tort law for harms caused by climate change.

The Article begins with a synthesis of the history of …

Consortium And Workers’ Compensation: The Demolition Of Consortium, Michael Green, David M. Layman

Louisiana Law Review

The article discusses issues on spousal consortium claims and workers' compensation in the U.S., including the aspects of compensation for accidental injuries and tort claims.

New Concern For Transnational Corporations: Potential Liability For Tortious Acts Committed By Foreign Partners

San Diego Law Review

This Comment addresses these broad issues in three parts. First, it discusses past initiatives by various governing bodies and private groups to handle the problem of TNCs investing in countries that commit grave human rights violations. 14 More specifically, the efforts discussed are those of the United Nations, the U.S. Congress and the President, state and city governments, and private groups. 5 Because of the U.S. government's desire to promote free trade, none of these efforts has proved effective in regulating investment activity overseas.

Torts: Just Walk Away: How An Overbroad Foreseeability Of Harm Standard Could Kill “Curbside Consultations” — Warren V. Dinter, 926 N.W.2d 370 (Minn. 2019), Erika Miller

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Science Or Status Quo? Disregard For A Defendant's Mental Illness In Tort Suits, Gabrielle Lindquist

Washington Law Review Online

Mental illness is almost never considered when courts determine whether a defendant is liable for a tort. Nearly every United States jurisdiction—Washington state included—declines to offer a modified “reasonable person” standard for negligent tort defendants with mental illnesses or any form of mental illness-based affirmative defense for intentional tort defendants. There is much debate about whether tort law should evolve to accommodate defendants with mental illnesses. This Comment seeks to dive deeper into why that debate persists.

Although there are numerous justifications for this current state of tort law, the most common rationalizations given are twofold. First, that the primary …

Nothing Is Over: Ftca Claims For Toxic Torts On Native Lands, Jessica Ditmore

American Indian Law Journal

In 1976, Congress passed the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (“RCRA”) to curtail the growing problem of disposing of hazardous waste and toxic substances generally. Decades prior, Congress established the Federal Tort Claims Act (“FTCA”) to hold the federal Government liable for tortious conduct the same way a private citizen would be. The federal government assumed the responsibility to ensure the wellbeing of Native Nations (“NN”). This is commonly referred to the “Trust Doctrine.” This duty stems from the settlement of Native American lands, and a recognition of the treaties entered into by the United States with a “moral [obligation] …

The Internet Of Bodies, Andrea M. Matwyshyn

William & Mary Law Review

This Article introduces the ongoing progression of the Internet of Things (IoT) into the Internet of Bodies (IoB)—a network of human bodies whose integrity and functionality rely at least in part on the Internet and related technologies, such as artificial intelligence. IoB devices will evidence the same categories of legacy security flaws that have plagued IoT devices. However, unlike most IoT, IoB technologies will directly, physically harm human bodies—a set of harms courts, legislators, and regulators will deem worthy of legal redress. As such, IoB will herald the arrival of (some forms of) corporate software liability and a new legal …

Perverting Incentives When The Priceless Is Not Compensable: Victims’ Subjective Value In Negligence, Yehonatan Shiman

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Perpetuating Injustice: Analyzing The Maryland Court Of Appeals’S Refusal To Change The Common Law Doctrine Of Contributory Negligence, Andrew White

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Money That Costs Too Much: Regulating Financial Incentives, Kristen Underhill

Indiana Law Journal

Money may not corrupt. But should we worry if it corrodes? Legal scholars in a range of fields have expressed concern about “motivational crowding-out,” a process by which offering financial rewards for good behavior may undermine laudable social motivations, like professionalism or civic duty. Disquiet about the motivational impacts of incentives has now extended to health law, employment law, tax, torts, contracts, criminal law, property, and beyond. In some cases, the fear of crowding-out has inspired concrete opposition to innovative policies that marshal incentives to change individual behavior. But to date, our fears about crowding-out have been unfocused and amorphous; …

A Corporate Duty To Rescue: Biopharmaceutical Companies And Access To Medications, Rebecca E. Wolitz

Indiana Law Journal

Controversies regarding the pricing of biopharmaceutical products are pervasive. Patients must choose between treatment and rent, prescriptions go unfilled, and health systems are forced to restrict access to life-saving medications— all because of cost. Though there is often consensus that these issues are problematic, there is disagreement as to what are appropriate solutions and who has responsibility to bring about those solutions. Most efforts to address biopharmaceutical pricing concerns focus on governmental regulation. This Article has a different focus. It provides a legal and normative analysis of a form of corporate self-regulation that could help address access and pricing concerns—a …

Compensation At The Crossroads: Autonomous Vehicles & Alternative Victim Compensation Schemes, Tracy Hresko Pearl

William & Mary Law Review

Fully autonomous vehicles will become available to consumers within the next five to seven years. Experts predict that these vehicles will be drastically safer than their human-driven counterparts and will save thousands of lives each year in the United States alone. However, crashes will still occur, and when they do, they will raise unique and troubling issues about liability and fault that both negligence and products liability jurisprudence are not yet wellsuited to handle.

Whether the civil justice system can adjudicate autonomous vehicle crash cases fairly and efficiently impacts (a) whether manufacturers can afford to produce these vehicles or whether …

Is The Grass Greener On The Other Side Of The Geofence: The First Amendment And Privacy Implications Of Unauthorized Smartphone Messages, Kearston L. Wesner

Journal of Law, Technology, & the Internet

Geofencing technology enables companies to obtain users’ physical location and deliver customized communications, including political messages. But to accomplish this, some businesses transmit user data to third parties without consent. The privacy tort of intrusion and Federal Trade Commission actions target unfair or deceptive practices, but these avenues are inadequate. Users’ privacy should be safeguarded by creating a federal privacy statute that requires opt-in notification and periodic reminders of data collection, usage, and transmission practices.

Torts: Missing The Forest For The Factors—Frederick V. Wallerich, 907 N.W.2d 167 (Minn. 2018), Michelle Gibbons

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Enforcement Of Punitive Damages Awards Between United States And Europe: An Introduction For U.S. Practitioners, Maria Veronica Saladino

The International Lawyer

This article’s objective is to introduce U.S.-based practitioners to European civil-law perspectives on whether U.S. punitive damages awards are enforceable in their jurisdictions. After a brief review concerning the birth of punitive damages within common law, valuable to better understand their cultural and legal significance, this article will outline how the prominent European jurisdictions — France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland — have dealt with the enforcement of U.S. punitive damages awards. Through each jurisdiction’s policy principles and relevant law, this article aims to afford U.S.-based practitioners initial tips and litigation strategies about how to maximize their chances of enforcing …

Abolishing The Suicide Rule, Alex B. Long

Northwestern University Law Review

Suicide is increasingly recognized as a public health issue. There are over 40,000 suicides a year in the U.S., making suicide the tenth-leading cause of death in the country. But societal attitudes on the subject remain decidedly mixed. Suicide is often closely linked to mental illness, a condition that continues to involve stigma and often triggers irrational fears and misunderstanding. For many, suicide remains an immoral act that flies in the face of strongly held religious principles. In some ways, tort law’s treatment of suicide mirrors the conflicting societal views regarding suicide. Tort law has long been reluctant to permit …

Liability For Unintentional Nuisances: How The Restatement Of Torts Almost Negligently Killed The Right To Exclude In Property Law, Jill M. Fraley

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Silencing State Courts, Jeffrey Steven Gordon

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

In state courts across the Nation, an absolutist conception of the First Amendment is preempting common law speech torts. From intentional infliction of emotional distress and intrusion upon seclusion, to intentional interference with contractual relations and negligent infliction of emotional distress, state courts are dismissing speech tort claims on the pleadings because of the broad First Amendment defense recognized by Snyder v. Phelps in 2011. This Article argues, contrary to the scholarly consensus, that Snyder was a categorical departure from the methodology adopted by New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the landmark 1964 case that first applied the First …

A Mountain State Transformation: West Virginia's Move Into The Mainstream, Cary Silverman, Richard R. Heath Jr.

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

One Rule To Compensate Them All, Noam Sher

West Virginia Law Review

The article claims that there is a unique compensation criterion that should be applied in all civil wrongs, inter alia, in tort, intellectual property and property law. Where an individual wrongfully infringes the right of another, the taker should be obliged to repay the victim her damages plus half the additional attributed net profits derived from the taking. This article names this criterion the Golden Rule. The suggested criterion contains three main components. First, for example, a firm increased manufacturing with profits of $1,000, acted wrongfully, and, as a result, someone suffered damages of $600-the taker should pay the victim …