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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Failure Of Liability In Modern Markets, Yesha Yadav
The Failure Of Liability In Modern Markets, Yesha Yadav
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
In April 2015, the Department of Justice charged Navinder Sarao for his role in causing the Flash Crash-the near-1,000-point drop-and- rebound in the Dow Jones Index that roiled markets in May 2010. Sarao, a small-time British trader operating out of his parents' suburban basement, stood accused of putting together a string of illusory, fake orders that fooled markets enough to spark the largest single-day drop in the index's history. Commentators rightly contest whether a bit-player like Sarao could have unleashed a near-catastrophe on U.S. securities markets single-handedly. Yet, the complaint-and its causal account- point to a troubling dilemma facing scholars …
Deterring And Compensating Oil-Spill Catastrophes: The Need For Strict And Two-Tier Liability, W. Kip Viscusi
Deterring And Compensating Oil-Spill Catastrophes: The Need For Strict And Two-Tier Liability, W. Kip Viscusi
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill highlighted the glaring weaknesses in the current liability and regulatory regime for oil spills and for environmental catastrophes more broadly. This Article proposes a new liability structure for deep-sea oil drilling and for catastrophic risks generally. It delineates a two-tier system of liability. The first tier would impose strict liability up to the firm's financial resources, including insurance coverage. The second tier would be an annual tax equal to the expected costs in the coming year beyond this damages amount. Before beginning a risky operation, the proposed liability scheme would identify a single firm-the …
Making Nuisance Ecological, J.B. Ruhl
Making Nuisance Ecological, J.B. Ruhl
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Common law nuisance doctrine has the reputation of having provided much of the strength and content of environmental law prior to the rise of federal statutory regimes in the 1970s, but since then has taken a back seat to regulatory law with respect to the environment. In particular, whereas nuisance doctrine has been criticized - many say too harshly - as being inadequate for dealing with the demands of modern pollution control, it has never been considered as having much at all to do with management of ecological concerns. Yet nuisance law evolves with changed circumstances and new knowledge. This …
Regulation By Adaptive Management--Is It Possible?, J.B. Ruhl
Regulation By Adaptive Management--Is It Possible?, J.B. Ruhl
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Today's voluminous literature on adaptive management traces its roots to Professor C.S. Holling's seminal work, Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management. Although almost thirty years have passed since he and his colleagues first described the adaptive management methodology, no work on the topic has improved on their core theory. Its essence is an iterative, incremental decisionmaking process built around a continuous process of monitoring the effects of decisions and adjusting decisions accordingly. It is in other words, far more suited to the needs of future regulatory challenges than is prescriptive regulation. My focus, however, is not on what adaptive management should …
The Economics Of Post-September 11 Financial Aid To Airlines, Margaret M. Blair
The Economics Of Post-September 11 Financial Aid To Airlines, Margaret M. Blair
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This Article considers the economic and policy merits of the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act, passed by Congress and signed into law in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The Act provided immediate cash relief to airlines to compensate them for losses resulting from the federal ground stop order during the first four days after the attack, as well as established the Air Transportation Stabilization Board to consider further federal financial assistance such as loan guarantees to airlines hurt by the actual terrorist events and the threat of future such events. During the year …
Jurors, Judges, And The Mistreatment Of Risk By The Courts, W. Kip Viscusi
Jurors, Judges, And The Mistreatment Of Risk By The Courts, W. Kip Viscusi
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
A sample of almost 500 jury-eligible citizens considered a series of experimental situations involving accidents. The juror sample did not properly apply negligence rules, as their errors were particularly great for low-probability, large-loss cases. They also penalized corporations for undertaking corporate risk analyses that seek to trade off cost versus risk reduction benefits. Jurors' damages assessments were also more prone to error than were responses by a sample of state judges. Judges were less prone to erroneous risk beliefs and less subject to the zero-risk mentality.
Deterring Inefficient Pharmaceutical Litigation: An Economic Rationale For The Fda Regulatory Compliance Defense, W. Kip Viscusi
Deterring Inefficient Pharmaceutical Litigation: An Economic Rationale For The Fda Regulatory Compliance Defense, W. Kip Viscusi
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This Article examines the interaction between direct regulation of pharmaceuticals under the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) and the indirect regulation of pharmaceuticals provided by common law tort incentives. The Article concludes that tort liability is generally inappropriate in cases where manufacturers have complied with the FDCA. The Article begins with a description of the FDCA's operation, and provides an overview of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) role in the drug approval process and drug labeling. This overview will demonstrate the need for centralized control over drug labeling. Moreover, we will provide an explanation of the costs …
The National Implications Of Liability Reforms For General Liability And Medical Malpractice Insurance, W. Kip Viscusi, Patricia Born
The National Implications Of Liability Reforms For General Liability And Medical Malpractice Insurance, W. Kip Viscusi, Patricia Born
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The stabilization of the insurance market may lead to lower prices for products and for medical care, but will also generally lead to lower values of tort awards as well. If the social objective was simply to reduce losses, then that objective could be achieved by abolishing tort liability altogether. Our societal concerns are clearly much broader. In the absence of a more detailed assessment of the desirability of the reforms and their effect on injured parties, it would be premature to conclude that reform efforts that were successful in enhancing insurance market profitability should be judged a success from …
The Impact Of Environmental Liabilities On Privatization In Central And Eastern Europe: A Case Study Of Poland, Randall Thomas
The Impact Of Environmental Liabilities On Privatization In Central And Eastern Europe: A Case Study Of Poland, Randall Thomas
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries are breaking up their centrally planned economies at a record pace by selling formerly state-owned industrial enterprises to private sector investors. Privatization is expected to create more profit-oriented and efficient industries, a predicate for sustained long term economic growth. This transformation from public to private ownership presents tremendous challenges to these new democracies as they struggle to create market economies and democratic institutions.
A Statistical Profile Of Pharmaceutical Industry Liability, 1976-1989, W. Kip Viscusi, Michael J. Moore, James Albright
A Statistical Profile Of Pharmaceutical Industry Liability, 1976-1989, W. Kip Viscusi, Michael J. Moore, James Albright
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
There is little question that the imposition of constraints on awards and other pro-defendant changes in the liability regime will reduce liability costs. However, the patterns observed in the federal courts are quite pronounced, far beyond what even the most ardent proponent of liability reform may have expected. Recent research analyzing the specific effect of liability reforms on general liability insurance and medical malpractice insurance suggests that these measures did have a significant role in limiting liability costs. 18 Damage cap reforms appear to have been particularly influential. However, the effect on liability insurance costs is not as dramatic as …
The Plight Of The Passive Past Owner: Defining The Limits Of Superfund Liability, J.B. Ruhl
The Plight Of The Passive Past Owner: Defining The Limits Of Superfund Liability, J.B. Ruhl
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
These days, if you want to stir up high emotions in Congress, statehouses, corporate boardrooms or citizen group meetings, mention the word Superfund. That alias for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA) evokes strong reactions from industry, environmentalists, bankers, politicians, and just about everyone else. CERCLA, a relative latecomer to the present-day body of federal environmental law, was enacted in 1980 to fill a gap in then existing law by creating the authority and liability for cleanup of abandoned facilities contaminated with hazardous substances. In the short time it has been with us, CERCLA has …
Market Incentives For Safety, W. Kip Viscusi
Market Incentives For Safety, W. Kip Viscusi
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
In the heated atmosphere generated by inch-high headlines and multimillion-dollar liability suits, two important facts often get lost. First, society's awareness of what ensuring reasonably complete safety would cost rarely matches the intensity of its demands for such assurance. And second, the most powerful forces working to make products and workplaces safer are not the edicts of government but the dynamics of the market. True, there are situations in which the market cannot by itself create effective incentives for safety, but in the vast majority of cases it can-and does. Drawing on his extensive research into the regulation of risk, …