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Full-Text Articles in Torts

Nominal Damages As Vindication, Sadie Blanchard Jan 2022

Nominal Damages As Vindication, Sadie Blanchard

Journal Articles

A recent Supreme Court decision inspired a resurgence of interest in an old mystery: how can nominal damages vindicate a plaintiff for past harm? The Court relied on the longstanding common law practice of entitling a plaintiff to sue for violation of her rights, even without demonstrating harm in fact, and to recover nominal damages. Courts have long asserted that awarding nominal damages in such suits vindicates the plaintiff. But they have not explained just how awarding $1 provides vindication, and serious observers scoff at the idea that it does. This Article offers a theory of vindication through nominal damages …


Covid-19 Business Interruption Insurance Losses: The Cases For And Against Coverage, Christopher French Jan 2020

Covid-19 Business Interruption Insurance Losses: The Cases For And Against Coverage, Christopher French

Journal Articles

The financial consequences of the government-ordered shutdowns of businesses across America to mitigate the COVID-19 health crisis are enormous. Estimates indicate that small businesses have lost $255 to $431 billion per month and more than 44 million workers have been laid off. When businesses have requested reimbursement of their business interruption losses from their insurers under business interruption policies, their insurers have denied the claims. The insurance industry also has announced that business interruption policies do not cover pandemic losses, so they intend to fight COVID-19 claims “tooth and nail.” More than 450 lawsuits throughout the country already have been …


Sex, Videos, And Insurance: How Gawker Could Have Avoided Financial Responsibility For The $140 Million Hulk Hogan Sex Tape Verdict, Christopher French Jun 2016

Sex, Videos, And Insurance: How Gawker Could Have Avoided Financial Responsibility For The $140 Million Hulk Hogan Sex Tape Verdict, Christopher French

Journal Articles

On March 18, 2016, and March 22, 2016, a jury awarded Terry Bollea (a.k.a Hulk Hogan) a total of $140 million in compensatory and punitive damages against Gawker Media for posting less than two minutes of a video of Hulk Hogan having sex with his best friend’s wife. The award was based upon a finding that Gawker intentionally had invaded Hulk Hogan’s privacy by posting the video online. The case has been receiving extensive media coverage because it is a tawdry tale involving a celebrity, betrayal, adultery, sex, and the First Amendment. The case likely will be remembered by most …


The Role Of The Profit Imperative In Risk Management, Christopher French Jan 2015

The Role Of The Profit Imperative In Risk Management, Christopher French

Journal Articles

Risks in the world abound. Every day there is a chance that each of us could be in a car accident. Or, one of us could be the victim of a tornado, flood or earthquake. Every day someone becomes deathly ill from an insidious disease. Our properties are in constant peril—one’s house could catch fire at any time or a tree could fall on it during a storm. Any one of these events could have devastating financial consequences, and they are just a few of the many risks that impact our daily lives. One of the principal ways we manage …


Plaintiff Control And Domination In Multidistrict Mass Torts, S. Todd Brown Jan 2013

Plaintiff Control And Domination In Multidistrict Mass Torts, S. Todd Brown

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.


The “Ensuing Loss” Clause In Insurance Policies: The Forgotten And Misunderstood Antidote To Anti-Concurrent Causation Exclusions, Chris French Jan 2012

The “Ensuing Loss” Clause In Insurance Policies: The Forgotten And Misunderstood Antidote To Anti-Concurrent Causation Exclusions, Chris French

Journal Articles

As a result of the 1906 earthquake and fire in San Francisco which destroyed the city, a clause known as the “ensuing loss” clause was created to address concurrent causation situations in which a loss follows both a covered peril and an excluded peril. Ensuing loss clauses appear in the exclusions section of such policies and in essence they provide that coverage for a loss caused by an excluded peril is nonetheless covered if the loss “ensues” from a covered peril. Today, ensuing loss clauses are found in “all risk” property and homeowners policies, which cover all losses except for …


The “Non-Cumulation Clause”: An “Other Insurance” Clause By Another Name, Chris French Jan 2011

The “Non-Cumulation Clause”: An “Other Insurance” Clause By Another Name, Chris French

Journal Articles

How long-tail liability claims such as asbestos bodily injury claims and environmental property damage claims are allocated among multiple triggered policy years can result in the shifting of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars from one party to another. In recent years, insurers have argued that clauses commonly titled, “Prior Insurance and Non-Cumulation of Liability” (referred to herein as “Non-Cumulation Clauses”), which are found in commercial liability policies, should be applied to reduce or eliminate their coverage responsibilities for long-tail liability claims by shifting their coverage responsibilities to insurers that issued policies in earlier policy years. The insurers’ argument …


The Legal Community And The Transformation Of Disputes: The Settlement Of Injunction Actions, James B. Atleson Jan 1989

The Legal Community And The Transformation Of Disputes: The Settlement Of Injunction Actions, James B. Atleson

Journal Articles

Lawyers in cases involving injunctions against picketing represent clients in situations of great immediacy. A significant number of injunction actions are settled with reductions in picketing despite a seemingly restrictive statute and a highly organized workforce. This study of legal culture examines the role of lawyers in striving to create predictability, especially in regard to judges and the police, and in transforming conflicts of value into disputes over interests that can be resolved without resort to formal adjudication.