Torts Commons^™

Rewriting Hockey's Unwritten Rules: Moore V. Bertuzzi, Patrick K. Thornton

Maine Law Review

The word “enforcer” or “hockey goon” does not appear in the 2007–2008 National Hockey League (NHL) rulebook. However, every player and coach knows the meaning of those words. Hockey has always had its share of enforcers or “goons” that have protected star players. Steve Moore, former Harvard captain, and his parents have sued NHL tough-man Todd Bertuzzi, the Vancouver Canucks, and the partnership that owned the Canucks for an on-ice incident that occurred between Moore and Bertuzzi on March 8, 2004. Dedicated hockey fans have followed the lawsuit, but with the “incident” now over four years old many have forgotten …

The Unappreciated Importance, For Small Business Defendants, Of The Duty To Settle, Robert Heidt

Maine Law Review

This paper suggests how the duty to settle, which requires liability insurers to pay damages awarded against their insured in excess of the policy limits when the insurers reject a reasonable settlement offer within the limits, may have indirectly led certain of their insureds--small business recreational vendors like horse riding stables or some motels offering swimming pools with diving boards--to sanitize the recreational activities they offer. More generally, the duty to settle's effect on the lawsuits injured customers brought against small business recreational vendors may have led a wide variety of such vendors to sanitize activities the vendors previously offered …

A Strange Distinction: Charitable Immunity And Clergy Sexual Abuse In Picher V. Roman Catholic Bishop Of Portland, Matthew Cobb

Maine Law Review

In 2009, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, decided Picher v. Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland, a case that presented an issue of first impression in Maine: whether the doctrine of charitable immunity protected charitable organizations from liability for intentional torts. The court ultimately held that charitable immunity was not a defense to intentional torts, but that it did bar negligence claims based on the sexual abuse of a minor. In Picher, a majority of the Law Court partly vacated the trial court’s grant of summary judgment for the Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland (Bishop) and …

Has Addy V. Jenkins, Inc. Heightened The Standard For Establishing A Reasonable Inference Of Proximate Cause In Maine?, Denitsa N. Pocheva-Smith

Maine Law Review

Suppose the following: A subcontractor is hired by a construction company to dry-wall the outside of a building. The general contractor provides and erects a three-story staging to assist the subcontractor during that process. The staging is installed before the subcontractor is scheduled to start work, but does not contain safety equipment, such as rails, platforms, or ladders, and is not tied to the building. The subcontractor begins work on the building on Monday. On that same day, he falls while ascending the staging. He reports the fall to the general contractor and asks that safety equipment be installed on …

"The Wrong Approach At The Wrong Time?": Maine Adopts Strict Liability For Abnormally Dangerous Activities In Dyer V. Maine Drilling And Blasting, Inc., Matthew M. Cobb

Maine Law Review

In 2009, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, held in Dyer v. Maine Drilling and Blasting, Inc. that strict liability should be applied to abnormally dangerous activities in accordance with the Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 519-20. In doing so, the court expressly overruled its decision in Reynolds v. W.H. Hinman Co., which had rejected a strict liability approach to blasting cases in favor of a negligence-based standard. In Dyer, a majority of the Law Court vacated the trial court’s grant of summary judgment for Maine Drilling and Blasting, Inc. (Maine Drilling) and held that strict …

Constitution Day Lecture: Constitutional Law And Tort Law: Injury, Race, Gender, And Equal Protection, Jennifer B. Wriggins

Maine Law Review

The focus of today’s annual Constitution Day lecture at the University of Maine School of Law is on the Fourteenth Amendment and specifically how the Equal Protection Clause relates to tort law. First, I will talk about the Equal Protection Clause in general—what it says, and some of what it has been held to mean—particularly where government makes distinctions based on race and gender. Second, I will discuss two historical tort cases that violate equal protection on the basis of race. In doing so, I uncover the racial history of tort law that has been hidden in plain sight. I …

Access To Prescription Drugs: A Normative Economic Approach To Pharmacist Conscience Clause Legislation, Joanna K. Sax

Maine Law Review

Over the past several years, many states introduced legislation that protects a pharmacist’s decision to refuse to fill a prescription. Termed “conscience clauses,” these pieces of legislation allow a pharmacist to refuse to fill a prescription because of moral or religious objections without fear of legal repercussions. In 2006, for example, twenty-one states considered legislation that permits pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions; some bills focus on contraception alone, while others are not specific to any one type of medication. Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, and South Dakota have state laws that provide legal protection to pharmacists who refuse to fill …

The Long-Arm's Inappropriate Embrace, Lynda Wray Black

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Arguably, the heart balm torts have outlived their relevance in a society where marriage is no longer a necessary imprimatur for intimate relations, and where broken hearts and failed marriages are the statistical norm. A state’s resolute rejection of the heart balm torts in principle as well as applied to modern domestic relations mores need be checked neither by Constitutional protections of marriage nor by the need for uniformity among sister states. Therefore, one state need not and must not transport its domestic relations public policy across state lines. Mississippi’s expansive jurisdictional embrace of nonresidents, John Daly and Anna …

Estate Of Fortier V. City Of Lewiston: Is Maine's Tort Claims Act Unintelligible?, William I. Olver

Maine Law Review

In Estate of Fortier v. City of Lewiston, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, was asked to decide if the City of Lewiston was “using” an aircraft under the Maine Tort Claims Act (MTCA) when it chartered a plane from Twin Cities Air Services (Twin Cities) as part of an Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corp (AFJROTC) exercise. Tragically, the pilot and three AFJROTC cadets from Lewiston High School lost their lives when the plane crashed into Barker Mountain shortly after take-off. The families of the students brought suit against Lewiston, in part, alleging negligence …

Humphries V. New York-New York Hotel & Casino, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 77 (Oct. 5, 2017), Emily Meibert

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

An innkeeper is liable under NRS 651.015 if an injured patron can show that they suffered foreseeable harm; foreseeability is established when the innkeeper fails to exercise due care for the safety of its patrons or if the innkeeper had notice or knowledge of prior incidents of similar acts on the premises. Notice or knowledge of prior incidents of similar acts is a case-by-case analysis, and requires the district court consider similar wrongful acts in terms of the location of the attack, level of violence, and implicated security concerns.

Tipping The Scales?: Maine Adopts The Continuing Negligent Treatment Doctrine In Baker V. Farrand, Michael P. Beers

Maine Law Review

In Baker v. Farrand, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, held that for a series of related negligent acts or omissions committed by a health care provider or practitioner, a single cause of action “accrues” under the Maine Health Security Act (hereinafter MHSA) on the date of the last act or omission that contributed to the plaintiff’s injury. Hence, in situations where a physician provides continuing negligent treatment to a patient in which each and every one of the physician’s actions are negligent, the MHSA’s three-year statute of limitations does not begin to run until the …

The Information-Forcing Dilemma In Damages Law, Tun-Jen Chiang

William & Mary Law Review

Courts assessing compensatory damages awards often lack adequate information to determine the value of a victim’s loss. A central reason for this problem, which the literature has thus far overlooked, is that courts face a dilemma when applying their standard information-forcing tools to the context of damages. Specifically, the standard method by which courts obtain information is through a burden of proof. In the context of damages, this means a rule requiring plaintiffs to prove the value of a loss. But courts will often face a situation where a plaintiff can clearly prove the existence of a loss, yet cannot …

A Torahic Case Against Sjr8, Josh Burk

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Your Bodies, Ourselves: Legal Protection Of Potential Human Life, Jeffery A. Parness

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Ford Motor Co. V. Trejo, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 68 (Sept. 27, 2017), Jeff Chronister

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court declined to adopt the risk-utility analysis. The consumer-expectation test is the appropriate standard for strict products liability claims in Nevada, and the risk-utility analysis is inappropriate because it inserts aspects of negligence into the test and unfairly burdens plaintiffs.

Lewis V. Clarke, Summer L. Carmack

Public Land & Resources Law Review

One manner in which Indian tribes exercise their inherent sovereignty is by asserting sovereign immunity. In Lewis v. Clarke, the Court decided that the sovereign immunity extended to instrumentalities of tribes did not further extend to tribal employees acting within the scope of their employment. The Court acknowledged the concerns of the lower court, namely, the possibility of setting a precedent allowing future plaintiffs to sidestep a tribe’s sovereign immunity by suing a tribal employee in his individual capacity. However, the Supreme Court ultimately felt that the immunity of tribal employees should not exceed the immunity extended to state …

Franchise Tax Bd. V. Hyatt, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 57 (Sept. 14, 2017), Carmen Gilbert

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court found that discretionary-function immunity does not apply to intentional bad-faith tort claims. The Court also expressly adopted the false light invasion of privacy right of action in order to fully protect privacy interests. The Court also adopted the sliding scale approach for evaluating IIED claims, holding that increased severity of conduct will require less evidence to prove emotional distress.

Mass Torts—Maturation Of Law And Practice, Paul D. Rheingold

Pace Law Review

Mass tort litigation has been with us for about fifty years. This is dating the start from the MER/29 litigation in 1964. This field of law and practice has grown year after year, and it shows no sign of abating. At the same time, it can be said that this area of law and procedure has reached a mature stage; the practice is fairly standardized and earlier experiments have either become the model or have been abandoned.

The term “mass tort litigation” (MTL), as used in this article, confines itself to product liability personal injury cases involving similar injuries from …

Managed Care, Utilization Review, And Financial Risk Shifting: Compensating Patients For Health Care Cost Containment Injuries, Vernellia R. Randall

Vernellia R. Randall

This Article examines current tort remedies for personal injury claims and explores the problems that arise when these remedies are applied to physicians' actions that are directed by third-party payers. Part II of this Article explores the organization and historical development of managed health care products. Part III considers the past and present uses of the utilization review process and financial risk shifting. Part IV explores the applicability of traditional theories of tort liability to third-party payers, including direct liability of third-party payers who market managed care products. Part V considers the barriers that ERISA presents to compensating patients for …

Newsroom: Logan Quoted In Bloomberg News On Opiod Litigation 08-16-2017, Jef Feeley, Jared S. Hopkins

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Concurrent Liability In Tort And Contract, Yihan Goh, Man Yip

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This articleexamines the understanding of concurrent liability in tort and contract,through a detailed analysis of the interplay, intersection and independence of thelaw of torts and the law of contract. The central argument that will beadvanced is that the present understanding of the ‘incident rules’ inconcurrent liability in tort and contract, such as the applicable rules ofremoteness or limitation, is inconsistent with the rationale for concurrencelaid down in Henderson v MerrettSyndicates Ltd. Rather than analyse concurrence as a single situation, thatis, conceiving it as a contest between rules of tort or contract rules, we arguethat the better way forward is to …

Amoral Machines, Or: How Roboticists Can Learn To Stop Worrying And Love The Law, Bryan Casey

Northwestern University Law Review

The media and academic dialogue surrounding high-stakes decisionmaking by robotics applications has been dominated by a focus on morality. But the tendency to do so while overlooking the role that legal incentives play in shaping the behavior of profit-maximizing firms risks marginalizing the field of robotics and rendering many of the deepest challenges facing today’s engineers utterly intractable. This Essay attempts to both halt this trend and offer a course correction. Invoking Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s canonical analogy of the “bad man . . . who cares nothing for . . . ethical rules,” it demonstrates why philosophical abstractions like …

When Laundry Becomes Deadly: Why The Extension Of Duty Past Spouses In Schwartz V. Accuratus Corp. Holds The Right People Responsible For Take-Home Toxic Torts, Nicole Ward

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Study Of The Costs Of Legal Services In Personal Injury Litigation In Ontario: Final Report, Allan C. Hutchinson

Allan C. Hutchinson

Contingency Fee Agreements (CFAs) are now a fixed feature of the Ontario litigation landscape. However, little research or study has been done on exactly how they operate in practice, whether they advance the objectives that they were intended to achieve, and whether litigants are best served by the current arrangements. In this study, I intend to make a preliminary start to that research, set out some tentative criticisms of the CFA system as it currently operates, and, where appropriate, suggest preliminary proposals for change. It should be said at the outset that my efforts to obtain real and serious data …

Delucchi V. Songer, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 42 (June 29, 2017), Krystina Butchart

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

No abstract provided.

Supreme Disgorgement, Caprice Roberts

Florida Law Review

Disgorgement of a defendant’s wrongful gains is an ancient remedy. It applies across a spectrum of contexts—from trademark infringement to fiduciary duties, from common law to statutes, from public to private law. This remedy is not regarded as quintessential in American contract law, but that is changing. My earlier work, as cited by the Supreme Court, predicted this shift based upon a new rule in the Restatement (Third) of Restitution and Unjust Enrichment. The rule operationalizes disgorgement of profits for opportunistic breaches of contract. This new conceptualization of precedent authorizes a gain-based remedy that exceeds the compensation goals of contract …

Holding Supporters Of Terrorism Accountable: The Exercise Of General Jurisdiction Over The Pa And Plo In A Post-Daimler Framework, Mark D. Christopher

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Understanding Medical Records In The Twenty-First Century, Samuel D. Hodge, Jr., Joanne Callahan

Barry Law Review

No abstract provided.

Pizarro-Ortega V. Cervantes-Lopez, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 37 (June 22, 2017), Andrew Hart

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The court held that future medical expenses are a category of damages to which NRCP 16.1(a)(1)(C)’s computation requirement applies, and that a plaintiff is not absolved of complying with NRCP 16.1(a)(1)(C) simply because the plaintiff’s treating physician has indicated in medical records that future medical care is necessary.

"Local Data" In European Choice Of Law: A Trojan Horse From Across The Atlantic?, T.W. Dornis

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.