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Full-Text Articles in Consumer Protection Law
Torts And Innovation, Gideon Parchomovsky, Alex Stein
Torts And Innovation, Gideon Parchomovsky, Alex Stein
Michigan Law Review
This Essay exposes and analyzes a hitherto overlooked cost of tort law: its adverse effect on innovation. Tort liability for negligence, defective products, and medical malpractice is determined by reference to custom. We demonstrate that courts' reliance on custom and conventional technologies as the benchmark of liability chills innovation and distorts its path. Specifically, recourse to custom taxes innovators and subsidizes replicators of conventional technologies. We explore the causes and consequences of this phenomenon and propose two possible ways to modify tort law in order to make it more welcoming to innovation.
Products Liability--Some Observations About Allocation Of Risks, Page Keeton
Products Liability--Some Observations About Allocation Of Risks, Page Keeton
Michigan Law Review
Virtually all of the activities of mankind involve the use of some product. Consequently, nearly all losses in the nature of physical damage to persons or things, and a great deal of the economic losses flowing from inferior or unfit products, are factually caused by characteristics or conditions of products, or at least occur during the use of products. Therefore, when fault, in the sense in which fault has been used in the Anglo-American law of torts (a usage which frequently results in the imposition of liability without personal fault), is abandoned as a basis for shifting or allocating losses, …
Products Liability--The Expansion Of Fraud, Negligence, And Strict Tort Liability, John A. Sebert Jr.
Products Liability--The Expansion Of Fraud, Negligence, And Strict Tort Liability, John A. Sebert Jr.
Michigan Law Review
While judicial acceptance of this concept of strict tort liability has been proceeding apace, far less dramatic but equally significant developments have been occurring with respect to both negligence and fraud liability. The possibility of recovering for a seller's misrepresentations concerning his product has been enhanced by a plaintiff-oriented judicial redefinition of two elements of a cause of action for fraud: defendant's knowledge of the falsity of his representation and plaintiff's reliance upon the deception. At the same time, negligence liability has often come to resemble liability without fault as courts continue to deemphasize, as a prerequisite to the application …
Torts - Liability Of Supplier Of Chattel - Proof Of Manufacturer's Negligence, Whitmore Gray
Torts - Liability Of Supplier Of Chattel - Proof Of Manufacturer's Negligence, Whitmore Gray
Michigan Law Review
Plaintiff service station operator brought an action to recover for injuries resulting from the explosion of one of defendant manufacturer's tires. The tire, while admittedly new, had been purchased by a third party some eighteen months before being brought to the plaintiff for mounting. In addition to his own testimony, the only evidence supporting plaintiff's claim of negligence was expert testimony that such an explosion could be caused by defective wire in the bead when a tire was inflated to normal pressure, and also that there was opportunity for negligence in defendant's manufacturing processes. The district court set aside the …