Law Commons^™

Punitive Damages In Section 1983 Actions, John R. Williams

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Free Speech At What Cost?: Snyder V. Phelps And Speech-Based Tort Liability, Jeffrey Shulman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is always a hard case when fundamental interests collide, but the Fourth Circuit’s decision in Snyder v. Phelps, 580 F.3d 206 (4th Cir. 2009), cert. granted, 130 S. Ct. 1737 (2010), tilts doctrine too far in the direction of free speech, upsetting the Supreme Court’s careful weighing of interests that takes into account both the need for robust political debate and the need to protect private individuals from personal abuse. Where speech is directed at a private individual, especially one unwilling to hear but unable to escape the speaker’s message, the elements of the emotional distress claim more than …

When Is Religious Speech Outrageous?: Snyder V. Phelps And The Limits Of Religious Advocacy, Jeffrey Shulman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Constitution affords great protection to religiously motivated speech. Religious liberty would mean little if it did not mean the right to profess and practice as well as to believe. But are there limits beyond which religious speech loses its constitutional shield? Would it violate the First Amendment to subject a religious entity to tort liability if its religious profession causes emotional distress? When is religious speech outrageous?

These are vexing questions, to say the least; but the United States Supreme Court will take them up next term—and it will do so in a factual context that has generated as …

The Constitutionality Of Taxing Compensatory Damages For Mental Distress When There Was No Accompanying Physical Injury, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

Since 1919, statutory tax law has excluded from gross income compensatory damages received on account of a personal injury or sickness.1 The current version of that exclusion is set forth in section 104 (a) (2) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.2 The construction of that exclusion, both by the courts and by the Commissioner, underwent significant alterations over the 80-year period that the provision has existed.3 The statute itself was amended several times, most recently in 1996.4 It is the 1996 amendment that has raised a constitutional issue concerning the validity of a portion of the statute.5

Tort Law (Symposium: The Supreme Court And State And Local Government Law: The 1996-97 Term), Leon D. Lazer

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Civil Actions For Emotional Distress And R.A.V. V. City Of St. Paul, Michael K. Steenson

Faculty Scholarship

The law of emotional distress is characterized by judicial reluctance to create and expand remedies for emotional injuries. The issue here is whether the Court's decision in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul will impose further limitations on the right to recover civil damages for the intentional infliction of emotional injury, particular emotional injuries resulting from hate speech. This symposium first examines the applicability of the tort to redress claims based on abusive epithets based on the victim's race, gender, or sexual orientation. The symposium then argues that using this tort in cases involving hate speech should not create constitutional …

Slumlordism As A Tort, Joseph L. Sax, Fred J. Hiestand

Michigan Law Review

The war against poverty has been fought with rather more vigor than its initiators contemplated. Thus far, however, the major engagements have taken place in the streets of Watts and Chicago, which is not quite what they had in mind. Some, who think it odd that as we pass more laws we get more lawlessness, will perhaps content themselves by observing that the feeding hand is always bitten. Those less easily satisfied have begun to see the need for adopting some legal solutions as far reaching as the problems they are designed to abate; the following article is addressed to …