Law Commons^™

Why Indiana Harbor Is The Worst Torts Decision In American History, Carl T. Bogus

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Friday Night “Who Is Driving?” Debate Will Soon Come To An End: How Autonomous Vehicles Are Changing Our Lives And Societal Norms, Nicholas Calabria

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

In Defense Of The Restatement Of Liability Insurance Law, Tom Baker, Kyle D. Logue

Articles

The importance of liability law to the American system of justice, and to the US economy in general, are well known. Somewhat less well known, at least among non-lawyers, is the corresponding centrality of liability insurance. For most non-contractual legal claims for damages that are brought against individuals or firms, there is some form of liability insurance coverage. Such coverage, provided by state-regulated insurance companies, ranges from auto and homeowners’ policies (sold to consumers throughout the country) to commercial general liability policies (sold to businesses of all sizes) to professional liability policies of various sorts (including Directors and Officers coverage …

Resolving The Divided Patent Infringement Dilemma, Nathanial Grow

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article considers cases of divided patent infringement: those in which two or more parties collectively perform all the steps of a patented claim, but where no single party acting alone has completed the entire patented invention. Despite the increasing frequency with which such cases appear to be arising, courts have struggled to equitably resolve these lawsuits under the constraints of the existing statutory framework because of the competing policy concerns they present. On the one hand, any standard that holds two or more parties strictly liable whenever their combined actions infringe a patent risks imposing liability on countless seemingly …

The Prosser Myth Of Transferred Intent, Peter B. Kutner

Indiana Law Journal

The main theme of this Article is that Prosser advanced a mythical doctrine of transferred intent. What Prosser asserted to be the law was not the law when he wrote his article on transferred intent and amended his treatise. The cases he relied on to support his conclusions on transferred intent did not support them. Moreover, despite Prosser’s great influence on American tort law, Prosser’s position on transferred intent is not the law now and should not be. Its consequences are undesirable. Recognition of transferred intent as a basis of liability is due primarily to its inclusion in the First …

Negligent Infliction Of Emotional Distress: A Proposal For A Consistent Theory Of Tort Recovery For Bystanders And Direct Victims, Julie A. Greenberg

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Multiple Common Law Roots Of Charitable Immunity: An Essay In Honor Of Richard Epstein's Contributions To Tort Law, Jill R. Horwitz

Articles

Professor Epstein has long promoted replacing tort-based malpractice law with a new regime based on contracts. In Mortal Peril, he grounded his normative arguments in favor of such a shift in the positive, doctrinal history of charitable immunity law. In this essay, in three parts, I critique Professor Epstein’s suggestion that a faulty set of interpretations in charitable immunity law led to our current reliance on tort for malpractice claims. First, I offer an alternative interpretation to Professor Epstein’s claim that one group of 19th and early 20th century cases demonstrates a misguided effort to protect donor wishes. Rather, I …

Is There A Duty?: Limiting College And University Liability For Student Suicide, Susanna G. Dyer

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that nonclinician administrators employed by institutions of higher education do not have a special relationship with their students such that they have a duty to act with reasonable care to prevent a foreseeable student suicide. Courts that have in recent years ruled to the contrary have done so by incorrectly basing their duty-of-care analysis on foreseeability of harm alone. With an eye toward a proper duty-of-care analysis, this Note analyzes multiple factors to reach its conclusion, including the ideal relationship between colleges and their students and the burden on and capability of colleges to protect their students …

Common Law Property Metaphors On The Internet: The Real Problem With The Doctrine Of Cybertrespass, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The doctrine of cybertrespass represents one of the most recent attempts by courts to apply concepts and principles from the real world to the virtual world of the Internet. A creation of state common law, the doctrine essentially involved extending the tort of trespass to chattels to the electronic world. Consequently, unauthorized electronic interferences are deemed trespassory intrusions and rendered actionable. The present paper aims to undertake a conceptual study of the evolution of the doctrine, examining the doctrinal modifications courts were required to make to mould the doctrine to meet the specificities of cyberspace. It then uses cybertrespass to …

How Green Was Common Law?, David Schoenbrod

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Prior Written Notice Statutes In New York State: The Resurrection Of Sovereign Immunity, Lewis J. Lubell

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reasonable Mistake Of Age: A Needed Defense To Statutory Rape, Larry W. Myers

Michigan Law Review

Hernandez represents the first positive judicial step toward changing the irrational rules which currently control the crime of statutory rape, and its import should furnish a touchstone for the future development of the law of all sex crimes. In the brief period since the Hernandez decision was handed down it has been reaffirmed by its authors, and the legislatures in two other states have enacted statutes which embrace its sound reasoning. However, at least one state has evidenced an intent to follow the traditional judicial approach of imposing strict liability, notwithstanding the defendant's reasonable mistake with respect to the true …

The Attorney's Liability For Negligence, John W. Wade

Vanderbilt Law Review

The concept of negligence was late in developing in the common law. Perhaps the first group of cases in which the idea began to take shape involved the liability of persons who professed competence in certain callings.' One of these "callings" was that of the attorney,and cases as early as the middle of the eighteenth century hold an attorney liable on this basis.

Husband And Wife -- Personal Tort Actions Between Spouses -- Statutory Construction, Robert B. Olsen S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Following an interlocutory divorce decree, and while the parties were living apart from one another, defendant allegedly assaulted the plaintiff. The trial court dismissed her complaint on the ground that no action could be brought by one spouse against the other for personal torts committed during coverture. On appeal, held, reversed, three judges dissenting and one concurring. The Judicial Code and the Husband and Wife Statutes of Utah, when considered together, entitle a married woman to maintain an action against her husband for injuries intentionally inflicted upon her. Taylor v. Patten, 2 Utah (2d) 404, 275 P. (2d) …

The King Does No Wrong -- Liability For Misadministration, Reginald Parker

Vanderbilt Law Review

The age-old rule of the common law that a citizen may not seek redress from the government for wrongs committed by the latter is often restated in the form of two maxims. One is that "the king can do no wrong." It refers to "wrongs" in the narrower sense of the word, meaning torts and related delicts. It has its counter part if not origin in the Roman-Byzantine holding, princeps legibus solutus est.' Many modern countries and some states have abrogated the rule. The other maxim, "the sovereign cannot be sued without his consent," precludes any law suit, not merely …

Torts-False Imprisonment-Detention Of Insane Person, John A. Hellstrom S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff sued defendant doctor for false imprisonment arising out of her detention as an insane person. Defendant had examined plaintiff at the request of the plaintiff's husband, called the police, and advised that she be detained as dangerous. Plaintiff was released ten days later but there was evidence to the effect that she was of unsound mind when originally detained. The arrest and detention of insane persons without a warrant is authorized by a District of Columbia statute on the affidavits of two responsible persons supported by certificates from two doctors or when such a person is found in a …

Torts-False Imprisonment-Detention Of Insane Person, John A. Hellstrom S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff sued defendant doctor for false imprisonment arising out of her detention as an insane person. Defendant had examined plaintiff at the request of the plaintiff's husband, called the police, and advised that she be detained as dangerous. Plaintiff was released ten days later but there was evidence to the effect that she was of unsound mind when originally detained. The arrest and detention of insane persons without a warrant is authorized by a District of Columbia statute on the affidavits of two responsible persons supported by certificates from two doctors or when such a person is found in a …

Bases For Master's Liability And For Principal's Liability To Third Persons, Merton Ferson

Vanderbilt Law Review

The law with regard to principal and agent grew up as part and parcel of the law of contracts. The law with regard to master and servant grew up as part and parcel of the law of torts. Each one takes its origin far back in the history of the common law.

Agents were used in an early day to effect livery of seisin, to create covenants, and to carry on commercial transactions. The terms "principal" and "agent" may be of modern origin. But the power of one person to bind another in legal transactions was familiar in the days …

Liability In Anglo-American Law For Damage Done By Chattels, Fowler V. Harper

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Rights In Land - Lateral Support - Statute Increasing Common Law Rights And Duties - Constitutionality

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff sued for damages to his building which collapsed during excavating operations on defendant's adjoining land. A Michigan statute makes it the duty of land owners excavating to a depth of 12 feet or more below grade level to furnish sufficient lateral support to protect adjacent land and structures thereon from injury "due to the removed material in its natural state, or due to the disturbance of other existing conditions caused by such excavation," and imposes liability for injuries due to failure to comply with the act. The excavation on defendant's land, reaching a depth of 14 feet below grade …

Damage Liability Of Charitable Institutions, Carl Zollman

Michigan Law Review

The question of the liability of charitable institutions to actions for damages presents great difficulties. This is not due how- -ever to a lack of cases. The question has peculiarly "engaged the attention of the bench and bar of the country. The problem has been scrutinized from every conceivable viewpoint. The arguments for and against have well nigh been exhausted, and little, if anything, new remains to be advanced".' In their opinions the courts have frequently gone back to certain English cases disregarding the points decided but stressing certain dicta which have been uttered by the judges which decided them. …

The Liability Of The Common Carrier As Determined By The Recent Decisions Of The United States Supreme Court, Edwin C. Goddard

Articles

An understanding of the present day liability of the common carrier under conditions as they exist, especially in interstate shipments, is best reached by an historical journey from the early decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States to the end of the year just past.

Influence Of Social And Economic Ideals On The Law Of Malicious Torts, W. Gordon Stoner

Articles

"The existence and the alteration of human institutions," says DICEY, "must in a sense, always and everywhere depend upon the beliefs or feelings, or, in other words, upon the opinion of the society in which such institutions flourish."1 Undoubtedly, law, as much as any other human institution, has felt this influence of public opinion. The political, economical and ethical ideals of a people find expression in their laws. True it is that public opinion is usually, if not always, in the lead, but in a truly happy and contented society the distance is never great. As MAINE says, in progressive …

Outlines Of The Law Of Bailments And Carriers, Edwin C. Goddard

Books

The Outlines of Bailments and Carriers form part of a complete work on that subject intended for the use of classes in law schools. The other part, which is nearly ready for publication, consists of select cases illustrating and amplifying principles stated in the Outlines. It is the purpose of the Outlines not only to state the foundation principles of the subject, but to put these in orderly and consecutive form in order that the student may have an opportunity to see the subject as a whole. It is believed that any study of the cases without some such connected …

The Liability Of The Custodian Of Public Funds Lost Without His Fault, Gustav Stein

Michigan Law Review

In a work on Public Offices and Officers, the writer characterizes the question of the liability of an officer and his sureties for loss of public funds by the officer without default on his part, as ''of great interest and importance, but one upon which the authorities are in conflict." Since the publication of that work in 1890, a con­ siderable number of cases has arisen continuing the conflict, and llustrating its importance. It is proposed in this article, to state the views entertained by the courts, the extent to which they have been applied, the reasons advanced to support …