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Articles 121 - 146 of 146

Full-Text Articles in Torts

Presenting The Fleming Award To Justice Allen Linden At Pepperdine University School Of Law, Stephen D. Sugarman Mar 2012

Presenting The Fleming Award To Justice Allen Linden At Pepperdine University School Of Law, Stephen D. Sugarman

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


The Sosa Standard: What Does It Mean For Future Ats Litigation?, Virginia Monken Gomez Mar 2012

The Sosa Standard: What Does It Mean For Future Ats Litigation?, Virginia Monken Gomez

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Privacy Through Anonymity: An Economic Argument For Expanding The Right Of Privacy In Public Places, Joseph Siprut Mar 2012

Privacy Through Anonymity: An Economic Argument For Expanding The Right Of Privacy In Public Places, Joseph Siprut

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Non-Economic Damages In Pet Litigation: The Serious Need To Preserve A Rational Rule, Victor E. Schwartz, Emily J. Laird Mar 2012

Non-Economic Damages In Pet Litigation: The Serious Need To Preserve A Rational Rule, Victor E. Schwartz, Emily J. Laird

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


The Perfect Storm, An Imperfect Response, And A Sovereign Shield: Can Hurricane Katrina Victims Bring Negligence Claims Against The Government?, Tarak Anada Mar 2012

The Perfect Storm, An Imperfect Response, And A Sovereign Shield: Can Hurricane Katrina Victims Bring Negligence Claims Against The Government?, Tarak Anada

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Another Jackpot (In)Justice: Verdict Variability And Issue Preclusion In Mass Torts, Byron G. Stier Feb 2012

Another Jackpot (In)Justice: Verdict Variability And Issue Preclusion In Mass Torts, Byron G. Stier

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


The Saucier Qualified Immunity Experiment: An Empirical Analysis, Nancy Leong Feb 2012

The Saucier Qualified Immunity Experiment: An Empirical Analysis, Nancy Leong

Pepperdine Law Review

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the impact of the approach to qualified immunity that the Supreme Court first suggested in Siegert v. Gilley and later made mandatory in Saucier v. Katz. That approach dictates that lower courts should resolve constitutional issues prior to deciding whether a government official is shielded from liability by qualified immunity. A primary justification for this sequencing approach is the notion that where courts decide that constitutional law is not clearly established, and thus qualified immunity is available, future defendants can also escape liability for the same behavior. But the empirical analysis provided in …


Innocent Threats, Concealed Consent, And The Necessary Presence Of Strict Liability In Traditional Fault-Based Tort Law , Marin Roger Scordato Feb 2012

Innocent Threats, Concealed Consent, And The Necessary Presence Of Strict Liability In Traditional Fault-Based Tort Law , Marin Roger Scordato

Pepperdine Law Review

This article identifies and carefully analyzes the use in tort law of what is termed unilateral and bilateral legal analysis. Unilateral, or one-party, analysis involves the design of legal doctrine that is focused on the characteristics or status of a single legal person. It is traditionally associated with criminal law, where the doctrinal attention is tightly focused on the criminal defendant. Inquiry may be made regarding the nature and degree of harm suffered by the victim, or whether the victim agreed to the harm producing act, but these considerations are generally relevant only to the degree that they shed light …


Putting The “Product” In Reproduction: The Viability Of A Products Liability Action For Genetically Defective Sperm , Jennifer M. Vagle Jan 2012

Putting The “Product” In Reproduction: The Viability Of A Products Liability Action For Genetically Defective Sperm , Jennifer M. Vagle

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


The Torts Restatement's Inchoate Definition Of Intent For Battery, And Reflections On The Province Of Restatements, Joseph H. King Jan 2012

The Torts Restatement's Inchoate Definition Of Intent For Battery, And Reflections On The Province Of Restatements, Joseph H. King

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Compensation For Accidental Personal Injury: What Nations Might Learn From Each Other, Stephen D. Sugarman Jan 2012

Compensation For Accidental Personal Injury: What Nations Might Learn From Each Other, Stephen D. Sugarman

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


An Essay On Torts: States Of Argument, Marshall S. Shapo Jan 2012

An Essay On Torts: States Of Argument, Marshall S. Shapo

Pepperdine Law Review

This essay summarizes high points in torts scholarship and case law over a period of two generations, highlighting the “states of argument” that have characterized tort law over that period. It intertwines doctrine and policy. Its doctrinal features include the traditional spectrum of tort liability, the duty question, problems of proof, and the relative incoherency of damages rules. Noting the cross-doctrinal role of tort as a solver of functional problems, it focuses on major issues in products liability and medical malpractice. The essay discusses such elements of policy as the role of power in tort law, the tension between communitarianism …


Exporting United States Tort Law: The Importance Of Authenticity, Necessity, And Learning From Our Mistakes, Victor E. Schwartz, Christopher E. Appel Jan 2012

Exporting United States Tort Law: The Importance Of Authenticity, Necessity, And Learning From Our Mistakes, Victor E. Schwartz, Christopher E. Appel

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Torts As Public Wrongs, Michael L. Rustad Jan 2012

Torts As Public Wrongs, Michael L. Rustad

Pepperdine Law Review

This Article is a rejoinder to the civil recourse theorist's claim that tort law will be better served by retreating to the philosopher's prefecture of private wrongs. A subsidiary goal of this Article is to refute John Goldberg's claim that my sociologically-inspired theory of torts as public wrongs serves the interests of tort reformers rather than American consumers. In a nutshell, civil recourse theory is "tort reform in disguise," not the concept of torts as fulfilling wide-ranging purposes such as the social control of corporations. If judges adopt civil recourse theory, they will be less inclined to recognize new causes …


Harms From Exposure To Toxic Substances: The Limits Of Liability Law, Robert L. Rabin Jan 2012

Harms From Exposure To Toxic Substances: The Limits Of Liability Law, Robert L. Rabin

Pepperdine Law Review

n the early 1980s, there was great optimism about the prospects for a dawning era of toxic harms litigation, arising out of a heightened sensitivity to public health and safety concerns. This new sensitivity had been manifested in the preceding decade through a whirlwind of political activity, highlighted by such landmark Congressional legislation as the Clean Air Act, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, and the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and by the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency. Along parallel lines, a singularly proactive judicial framework for strict products liability emerged in the mid-1960s from a series of …


Peculiar Risk In American Tort Law, Ellen S. Pryor Jan 2012

Peculiar Risk In American Tort Law, Ellen S. Pryor

Pepperdine Law Review

American tort law includes a significant strand of liability tied to an intriguing concept variously termed “peculiar risk,” “special danger,” and “special risk inherent in the work,” among others. Peculiar risk presents a basis for liability different from other standards or actions that trigger liability in tort law - it is different from intent, recklessness, negligence, nuisance, and abnormally dangerous activity. Both England and the United States endorsed versions of the doctrine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yet, by 1965, American and English tort law had sharply diverged on the doctrine. American courts continued to apply it; …


Some Thoughts On Libel Tourism , Andrew R. Klein Jan 2012

Some Thoughts On Libel Tourism , Andrew R. Klein

Pepperdine Law Review

This paper addresses the topic of “libel tourism,” a phrase used to describe cases where plaintiffs sue for defamation in a foreign jurisdiction and then seek to enforce judgments in the U.S., where the outcome might have been different because of protections for speech embodied in the United States Constitution. A number of commentators have discussed libel tourism at length, and this paper does not provide a treatise on the topic. Rather, it reviews recent reactions from legislators, courts, and commentators, and then offer some thoughts about whether these reactions appropriately balance concerns of comity and free speech. Ultimately, the …


The Impact Of U.S. Tort Law In Canada, Lewis N. Klar Jan 2012

The Impact Of U.S. Tort Law In Canada, Lewis N. Klar

Pepperdine Law Review

This paper briefly summarizes some of the reasons offered by Professor Peter Cane for the minimal impact that U.S. tort law has had on the tort law of Australia and New Zealand. It discusses this matter from the perspective of Canadian tort law. It suggests that, for a variety of reasons, Canada is in a unique position; it shares some of the same characteristics of the Commonwealth countries which discourage the adoption of U.S. tort law, but at the same time is exposed to countervailing factors which tend to bring Canadian and U.S. tort laws closer together. It illustrates this …


The Impact Of The Civil Jury On American Tort Law, Michael D. Green Jan 2012

The Impact Of The Civil Jury On American Tort Law, Michael D. Green

Pepperdine Law Review

This article, a contribution to a symposium on the what American tort law can contribute to the rest of the world expresses skepticism that a considerable swath of U.S. tort law would be of interest to the rest of the world. The thesis is that American tort law has been shaped by the existence of the civil jury, unique to the U.S, and areas of domestic tort law so influenced have no utility internationally. The article catalogues many such areas and discusses several of them.


Tort In Three Dimensions, John C.P. Goldberg Jan 2012

Tort In Three Dimensions, John C.P. Goldberg

Pepperdine Law Review

Should our tort law serve as a model for other nations? The answer depends in part on what one understands it to be. Since the mid-Twentieth Century, progressives have favored 'thin' accounts that treat tort law as having but two dimensions: forum and function. Tort, they say, provides a general forum for grievances and, by doing so, performs certain governmental functions, such as deterrence of anti-social conduct, compensation of injury victims, and the bringing to light of abuses of power. Progressives have favored thin accounts mainly because those accounts emphasize the extent to which tort law enables courts to achieve …


What The United States Taught The Commonwealth About Pure Economic Loss: Time To Repay The Favor, Bruce Feldthusen Jan 2012

What The United States Taught The Commonwealth About Pure Economic Loss: Time To Repay The Favor, Bruce Feldthusen

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


International Tobacco Litigation's Evolution As A United States Torts Law Export: To Canada And Beyond?, Richard L. Cupp Jr. Jan 2012

International Tobacco Litigation's Evolution As A United States Torts Law Export: To Canada And Beyond?, Richard L. Cupp Jr.

Pepperdine Law Review

In the late 1990’s, the states’ healthcare reimbursement lawsuits against the tobacco industry were settled for approximately $246 billion. In the wake of this enormous settlement, many similar lawsuits were initiated in other nations or by other nations. Most of these early healthcare reimbursement lawsuits failed. However, in 2005, the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was finalized by over 150 nations, and today has been ratified by 168 nations. The Framework encourages nations to consider tort litigation against tobacco sellers as a way to limit tobacco usage. Canada’s provinces have been particularly aggressive in seeking to use …


Searching For United States Tort Law In The Antipodes, Peter Cane Jan 2012

Searching For United States Tort Law In The Antipodes, Peter Cane

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Apportioning Responsibility Among Joint Tortfeasors For International Law Violations, Roger P. Alford Jan 2012

Apportioning Responsibility Among Joint Tortfeasors For International Law Violations, Roger P. Alford

Pepperdine Law Review

With the new wave of claims against corporations for human rights violations – particularly in the context of aiding and abetting government abuse – there are unusually difficult problems of joint tortfeasor liability. In many circumstances, one tortfeasor – the corporation – is a deep-pocketed defendant, easily subject to suit, but only marginally involved in the unlawful conduct. Another tortfeasor – the sovereign – is a central player in the unlawful conduct, but, with limited exceptions, is immune from suit under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. A third tortfeasor – the low-level security personnel – accused of actually committing the …


American Tort Law: Shining Beacon?, Allen Linden Jan 2012

American Tort Law: Shining Beacon?, Allen Linden

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Introduction Of Allen Linden, Lewis N. Klar Jan 2012

Introduction Of Allen Linden, Lewis N. Klar

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.