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Full-Text Articles in Torts

Mctorts: The Social And Legal Impact Of Mcdonald's Role In Tort Suits, Caroline Forell Jan 2011

Mctorts: The Social And Legal Impact Of Mcdonald's Role In Tort Suits, Caroline Forell

Caroline A Forell

This Article looks at the impact of McDonald’s on public policy and tort law from historical and social psychology perspectives, following McDonald’s from its beginnings in the mid-1950’s through today. By examining McDonald’s Corp. v. Steel and Morris (McLibel), Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants (Hot Coffee), and Pelman v. McDonald’s Corp. (Childhood Obesity), I demonstrate that certain tort cases involving McDonald’s have had particularly important social and legal consequences that I attribute to McDonald’s special influence over the human psyche, beginning in childhood. In explaining McDonald’s extraordinary power over the public imagination and how this affects lawsuits involving it, I rely …


What's Reasonable?: Self-Defense And Mistake In Criminal And Tort Law, Caroline Forell Dec 2009

What's Reasonable?: Self-Defense And Mistake In Criminal And Tort Law, Caroline Forell

Caroline A Forell

In this Article, Professor Forell examines the criminal and tort mistake-as-to-self-defense doctrines. She uses the State v. Peairs criminal and Hattori v. Peairs tort mistaken self-defense cases to illustrate why application of the reasonable person standard to the same set of facts in two areas of law can lead to different outcomes. She also uses these cases to highlight how fundamentally different the perception of what is reasonable can be in different cultures. She then questions whether both criminal and tort law should continue to treat a reasonably mistaken belief that deadly force is necessary as justifiable self-defense. Based on …