Law Commons^™

The Use Of Risk Assessment Evidence To Prove Increased Risk And Alternative Causation In Toxic Tort Litigation, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

Due to the difficulties of proving causation in most toxic tort suits, plaintiffs and defendants in toxic tort litigation have begun to develop and use scientifically sophisticated risk assessments as evidence in proving or disproving causation. This use has led to two new trends in tort liability. First, there is the trend in which risk assessment is used by plaintiffs to buttress claims for future injury or increased risk. Second, there is the trend in which risk assessment is used by defendants to establish that other factors caused, in whole or in part, plaintiffs’ injuries.

This article evaluates these two …

Legal Devices For Enhancing Water Diversion Opportunities Within The Appropriation System, David C. Hallford

Moving the West's Water to New Uses: Winners and Losers (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

28 pages.

Evaluating Judicial Capacity To Determine Public Welfare Values In Water Transfers, Charles T. Dumars

Moving the West's Water to New Uses: Winners and Losers (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

31 pages (includes illustrations).

Contains references.

Water Agencies And Water Transfers In California: A Case Study Of The Kern County Water Agency, Brian E. Gray

Moving the West's Water to New Uses: Winners and Losers (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

20 pages.

Contains references.

The Role Of Market Transfers In The Accommodation Of New Uses: A Case Study Of The Truckee-Carson Basin, A. Dan Tarlock

Moving the West's Water to New Uses: Winners and Losers (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

31 pages (includes 1 map).

The Role Of The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission In Protecting Non-Consumptive Water Uses, Peter J. Kirsch, J. Barton Seitz

Moving the West's Water to New Uses: Winners and Losers (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

55 pages.

Update On Market Strategies For The Protection Of Western Instream Flows And Wetlands, Robert Wigington

Moving the West's Water to New Uses: Winners and Losers (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

49 pages.

Contains references.

Sources Of Water Iv: Tribal Water Rights, John E. Echohawk

Moving the West's Water to New Uses: Winners and Losers (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

10 pages.

Contains references.

Sources Of Water Iii: Interstate Transfers, Clyde O. Martz

Moving the West's Water to New Uses: Winners and Losers (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

35 pages.

Contains references.

Shifting The Uses Of Water In The West: An Overview, Lawrence J. Macdonnell

Moving the West's Water to New Uses: Winners and Losers (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

31 pages.

Contains references.

Agenda: Moving The West's Water To New Uses: Winners And Losers, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Moving the West's Water to New Uses: Winners and Losers (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

Conference organizers and/or faculty included University of Colorado Law School professors Lawrence J. MacDonnell and Mark Squillace.

Moving the West's Water to New Uses: Winners and Losers will be the theme for this year's water conference, June 6-8 at the Law School in Boulder. The conference will consider the changing demands for water in the West and the need to reallocate a portion of the existing uses of water to new uses.

The first day will provide the background by looking at the most likely sources of water to meet these demands, including agriculture, federal water projects, interstate transfers, and …

Testing The Selection Effect: A New Theoretical Framework With Empirical Tests, Theodore Eisenberg

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Recent law and economics scholarship has produced much theoretical and empirical work on how and why legal disputes are settled and litigated. One of the most significant developments in this literature, attributable to the work of William Baxter and the combined efforts of George Priest and Benjamin Klein, has been the formation of a theory about both the selection of disputes for trial and the rates of success that plaintiffs enjoy for those cases that are resolved at trial. The basic theory contains two components. The selection effect refers to the proposition that the selection of tried cases is not …

Doctrinal Collapse In Products Liability: The Empty Shell Of Failure To Warn, James A. Henderson Jr., Aaron Twerski

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Liability for a manufacturer's failure to warn of product-related risks is a well-established feature of modern products liability law. Yet many serious doctrinal and conceptual problems underlie these claims. Professors Henderson and Twerski explore these problems and argue that failure-to-warn jurisprudence is confused, perhaps irreparably, and that this confusion often results in the imposition of excessive liability on manufacturers. The authors begin by exposing basic errors resulting from courts' confusion over whether to apply a strict liability or a negligence standard of care in failure-to-warn cases. Having determined that negligence is the appropriate standard, they then examine more substantial and …

Dispute Processing And A Longitudinal Approach To Trial Courts, Lynn Mather

Journal Articles

This article suggests ways to integrate the insights and findings of two rather distinct fields: docket-based, longitudinal studies of trial courts and studies of dispute processing. In particular, I argue that longitudinal research on courts would benefit enormously from the incorporation of concepts and data on dispute processing. For example, instead of taking court cases as the starting point for study, longitudinal research should explore the multistage and transformative nature of disputing. Historical data should also be collected on the nature of the relationships between opposing litigants, on the roles played by participants other than the litigants (lawyers, supporters, audiences, …

Afterword: Studying Litigation And Social Change, Frank W. Munger

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Attitudes Toward Corporate Responsibility: A Psycholegal Perspective, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

One of the most striking phenomena in the contemporary legal world is the shift toward holding businesses and corporations responsible for harm. Legal theorists and historians maintain that today business corporations are expected to provide compensation for injuries that in earlier times would have been attributed to individuals or to fate. Furthermore, criminal charges against businesses and business executives are becoming commonplace.

Despite a good deal of legal scholarship on the shift toward holding businesses culpable for harms, psychologists have conducted little systematic research on public views of corporate responsibility. How do people conceptualize the civil liability or criminal responsibility …

Reassessing Rule 11 And Civil Rights Cases, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

The Advisory Committee on the Civil Rules amended Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (Rule 11) in August 1983 because of increasing concern about attorney abuses in civil lawsuits and about the so-called litigation explosion. The revision commands courts to sanction lawyers and parties who do not undertake reasonable prefiling inquiries. Certain aspects of the new version's implementation provoked substantial controversy which continued virtually undiminished from the amendment's August 1983 effective date at least until the fifth anniversary of its adoption. Perhaps most controversial was the question whether courts' application inhibited the pursuit of legitimate litigation, especially cases involving civil rights …

Civil Practice, Jay C. Carlisle

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

During the Survey year the New York Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of the state toxic tort revivor statute and adopted the market share theory in DES cases. The court also gave the bar a Christmas present in Tewari v. Tsoutsouros3 and clarified important discovery issues .Two appellate courts held that the AIDS virus falls within New York Civil Practice Law and Rules ("CPLR") 214-c and issued important decisions in notice of claims cases.6Also, several trial courts actively applied new sanctions rules. Perhaps the most important developments during the Survey year were the bench and bar proposals relating to …

Juridical Chameleons In The "New Erie" Canal, Donald L. Doernberg

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The New Erie doctrine, however, has become a doctrine of convenience, inconsistently applied by conservative and liberal Justices alike. It is the antithesis of a “neutral principle” of constitutional adjudication. To use Justice Jackson's term, the federal laws are not the “juridical chameleons”--the Justices are. Part II of this Article discusses the old and the New Erie doctrines as articulated by the United States Supreme Court. Part III demonstrates the difficulty of limiting the New Erie doctrine to the single area of implied rights of action and shows how the broad brush with which the doctrine's proponents paint necessarily touches …

The Use Of Anti-Suit Injunctions In International Litigation, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

Of the various forms of provisional relief in the context of inter-national litigation, none has sparked as much interest and controversy as the international anti-suit injunction. In many ways the international anti-suit injunction, an instrument by which a court of one jurisdiction seeks to restrain the conduct of litigation in another jurisdiction, resembles more conventional forms of international provisional relief such as the foreign attachment or preliminary injunction. Like them, the anti-suit injunction affords courts an important opportunity to affect the course and significance of litigation abroad. However, such intervention strongly implies – and often actually creates – jurisdictional conflict …

Proving Discrimination After Price Waterhouse And Wards Cove, Candace Kovacic-Fleischer

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

INTRODUCTION Anyone involved in litigation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 19641 or similar state statutes may wonder what is entailed in proving or disproving discrimination after the United States Supreme Court's October 1988 Term. In fact, in the pending Civil Rights Act of 1990, Congress is considering reversing some of what the Supreme Court did during that Term. One of the issues that the Supreme Court addressed during the 1988 Term involved allocating burdens of proof in two major types of Title VII claims, dis- parate-treatment and disparate-impact. Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, dealt with a disparate-treatment …

Hearsay: Part Ii, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Need For Clarity: Toward A New Standard For Preliminary Injunctions, Lea B. Vaughn

Articles

This Article examines the various standards for preliminary injunctions and demonstrates the ways in which the standards have become confused by irrelevant layers of meaning. Those layers of meaning are analyzed; nonfunctional accretions are discarded, and legitimate modem meanings are developed. The discussion is conducted against a background of assumptions about what makes a good standard, for example, accessibility and comprehensiveness. By modernizing the standard, the parties and the courts will frankly and openly discuss the underlying legal issues and values. This, in turn, should lead to more legitimate decisions.

Under a modernized standard, a court should redress immediate pretrial …

Voices Heard In Jury Argument: Litigation And The Law School Curriculum, Michael E. Tigar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

"You Can Lead A Horse To Water . . .": The Supreme Court's Refusal To Allow The Exercise Of Original Jurisdiction Conferred By Congress, Donald L. Doernberg

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article will address primarily the lack of textual and historical support for the Court's narrow construction of jurisdictional provisions that cause it to deny the existence of jurisdiction. In addition, the Article will briefly describe the lack of historical support for the Court's independent development of the abstention doctrines and their consequent illegitimacy. Both areas share democratic theory and institutional legitimacy concerns that Professor Redish will address, but let me respectfully suggest that these issues are best understood in light of the congressional thought underlying the Title 28 authorizations.

Book Review, Mark J. Loewenstein

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Case In Support Of Legislation Facilitating The Consolidation Of Mass-Accident Litigation: A View From The Legislature, Charles G. Geyh, Robert W. Kastenmeier

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Constitutional Right To Expert Assistance For Indigents In Civil Cases, David Medine

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Equitable Discretion To Dismiss Congressional-Plaintiff Suits: A Reassessment, Sophia Goodman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has devised a doctrine called equitable
discretion to screen congressional-plaintiff suits. The Author argues that the doctrine should be abandoned. She proposes that the courts be guided by existing standng principles in deciding whether to hear these cases.

The Influence Of Litigation Costs On Deterrence Under Strict Liability And Under Negligence, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

This paper examines the influence of litigation costs on deterrence under strict liability and under negligence. By deterrence, I refer to the effect of the threat of liability on the care exercised by potential injurers. More precisely, this paper takes litigation costs as given and examines the social desirability of the levels of care exercised under negligence and under strict liability.