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Full-Text Articles in Law

Companion Animal, Sebastien Gay Jan 2010

Companion Animal, Sebastien Gay

Animal Law Review

This Article presents a theory of the economic value of companion animal life. Under the existing United States torts regime, the standard damages award available to an owner for an action arising from a companion animal death is its fair market value. This approach implicitly assumes that pet owners are irrational, given that they generally invest more in their pets than the animal’s fair market value. This Article suggests that, based on an economic model that conceptualizes companion animals as an employee-investment hybrid, the value of a companion animal is higher than its fair market value. This model has implications …


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 …