Law Commons^™

Government Official Torts And The Takings Clause: Federalism And State Sovereign Immunity, Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

In this article, I argue that state sovereign and official immunities, insofar as they bar recovery when private parties would be liable for similar conduct, are unconstitutional under the takings clause of the fifth amendment, as applied to the states under the fourteenth.²² A state's refusal to compensate plaintiffs for the tortious damage or destruction of property should be redressed by the federal courts in civil actions brought under § 1983.

Section I of this article provides background through a discussion of the Supreme Court's treatment of the problem of torts committed by government officials, primarily in procedural due …

Cigarette Company Liability: Preemption, Public Policy And Alternative Compensation Systems, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article speculates that some courts may have used the preemption doctrine to mask their misgivings about the ability of tort litigation to provide fair compensation to injured consumers without bankrupting the tobacco industry. Consequently, the author suggests that it may be necessary to streamline the litigation process for mass torts or perhaps even to replace it with an alternative compensation system for the purpose of adjudicating smoking-related claims.

With this in mind, Part I briefly examines the health risks of smoking and the nature of the common law duty to warn. It also reviews a number of recent cigarette …

Comments On Professor Rotunda's Essay, Richard H. Underwood

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In this comment, Professor Richard H. Underwood provides a response to An Essay on the Constitutional Parameters of Federal Impeachment, by Professor Ronald D. Rotunda. Rotunda’s essay was published in the Kentucky Law Journal, Vol. 76, No. 3, pp. 707-732.

Finding Federalism In The Admiralty: "The Devil's Own Mess" Revisited, J.B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The federalism aspect of the United States Supreme Court's admiralty jurisprudence has long been adrift.' No feature of admiralty law illustrates the Court's difficulties in this regard better than maritime wrongful death remedies. From the beginning of the Court's involvement with maritime wrongful death remedies in The Harrisburg to its most recent decision on the subject in Offshore Logistics v. Tallentire, the Court's jurisprudence in this area has been characterized by inconsistency.

Democratic Education, Suzanna Sherry

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Amy Gutmann's Democratic Education might equally well be entitled Republican Education, for its central theme is how to produce true republican citizens-citizens who possess both the ability and the motivation to participate in their deliberative political communities. That such a republican education must take place in a democratic context, however, imposes limits on how educational decisions are made and on what may be taught. Gutmann carefully explores both. The resulting "democratic theory of education" she proposes and examines is a small masterpiece of political theory with implications far beyond the educational context.