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Full-Text Articles in Law
Torts And Innovation, Gideon Parchomovsky, Alex Stein
Torts And Innovation, Gideon Parchomovsky, Alex Stein
Michigan Law Review
This Essay exposes and analyzes a hitherto overlooked cost of tort law: its adverse effect on innovation. Tort liability for negligence, defective products, and medical malpractice is determined by reference to custom. We demonstrate that courts' reliance on custom and conventional technologies as the benchmark of liability chills innovation and distorts its path. Specifically, recourse to custom taxes innovators and subsidizes replicators of conventional technologies. We explore the causes and consequences of this phenomenon and propose two possible ways to modify tort law in order to make it more welcoming to innovation.
Learning The Wrong Lessons From "An American Tragedy": A Critique Of The Berger-Twerski Informed Choice Proposal, David E. Bernstein
Learning The Wrong Lessons From "An American Tragedy": A Critique Of The Berger-Twerski Informed Choice Proposal, David E. Bernstein
Michigan Law Review
Margaret Berger and Aaron Twerski are among the leading scholars in their respective fields of Evidence and Products Liability. I have benefited from their work on many occasions. Precisely because of the deserved respect and esteem in which Berger and Twerski are held-not to mention the prominence of their forum, the Michigan Law Review-their proposal to create a new "informed choice" cause of action in pharmaceutical litigation is likely to receive sympathetic attention. Because I believe that their proposal is ill-conceived and dangerous, I feel compelled (with some trepidation) to write this response. Berger and Twerski propose that courts recognize …
From The Wrong End Of The Telescope: A Response To Professor David Bernstein, Margaret A. Berger, Aaron D. Twerski
From The Wrong End Of The Telescope: A Response To Professor David Bernstein, Margaret A. Berger, Aaron D. Twerski
Michigan Law Review
On the pages of this law review, in an article entitled Uncertainty and Informed Choice: Unmasking Daubert, the authors argued for the recognition of a new product liability cause of action when drug companies fail to warn about uncertain risks attendant to the use of non-therapeutic drugs whose purpose is to enhance lifestyle. We noted that in the post-Daubert era, plaintiffs have faced increasing difficulty in proving that a given toxic agent was causally responsible for the injuries suffered after ingesting a drug. That plaintiffs cannot overcome the barriers to proving injury causation does not mean that defendants have met …
Daubert's Backwash: Litigation-Generated Science, William L. Anderson, Barry M. Parsons, Drummond Rennie
Daubert's Backwash: Litigation-Generated Science, William L. Anderson, Barry M. Parsons, Drummond Rennie
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
In the 1993 landmark case Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, the United States Supreme Court articulated its position on the admissibility of scientific evidence. The Court reasoned that federal judges should rely on the processes scientists use to identify unreliable research, including the process of peer review, to determine when scientific evidence should be inadmissible. In response, lawyers and their clients, seeking to rely on such evidence, have begun funding and publishing their own research with the primary intention of providing support to cases they are litigating. This Article examines the phenomenon of litigation-generated science, how it potentially undermines …
Substance And Form In Scientific Evidence: What Daubert Didn't Do, Samuel R. Gross
Substance And Form In Scientific Evidence: What Daubert Didn't Do, Samuel R. Gross
Book Chapters
On its face, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals was about as easy a case as the Supreme Court gets. The plaintiffs claimed that their birth defects were caused by the anti-nausea drug Bendectin, which their mothers had used during their gestation. In response to a motion for summary judgment by the defendant, the plaintiffs presented affidavits of eight expert witnesses who offered their opinions - based on a variety of studies - that Bendectin was indeed the culprit. The federal district court that heard the motion granted summary judgment to the defendant, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed. Both lower courts …
Substance And Form In Scientific Evidence: What Daubert Didn't Do, Samuel R. Gross
Substance And Form In Scientific Evidence: What Daubert Didn't Do, Samuel R. Gross
Book Chapters
On its face, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals was about as easy a case as the Supreme Court gets. The plaintiff claimed that their birth defect were caused by the anti-nausea drug Bendectin, which their mothers had used during their gestation. In response to a motion for summary judgment by the defendant, the plaintiff presented affidavits of eight expert witnesses who offered their opinion - based on a variety of studies- that Bendectin was indeed the culprit. The federal district court that heard the motion granted summary judgment to the defendant, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed. Both lower court held …