Law Commons^™

The New "Web-Stream" Of Commerce: Amazon And The Necessity Of Strict Products Liability For Online Marketplaces, Margaret E. Dillaway

Vanderbilt Law Review

Technology company Amazon has actively transformed into an e-commerce giant over the last two decades. Once a simple online bookstore, Amazon now boasts an ever-expanding identity as global cloud computing provider, major player in artificial intelligence, brick-and-mortar grocery store, and producer of original video content. At its roots, the company remains focused on e-commerce—its multibillion-dollar online marketplace hosts a massive digital space for commerce worldwide where customers can order “anything, with a capital A.”

Amazon derives many of its sales from third-party vendors who list products on the company’s website, Amazon.com. In this broadening chain of distribution for online retail, …

Products Liability And Economic Activity: An Empirical Analysis Of Tort Reform's Impact On Businesses, Employment, And Production, Joanna M. Shepherd

Vanderbilt Law Review

For decades, advocates of tort reform have argued that expansive products liability stifles economic activity by imposing excessive and unpredictable liability costs on businesses. Although politicians aspiring to create jobs, attract businesses, and improve the economy have relied on this argument to enact hundreds of reforms, it has largely gone empirically untested. No longer. Using the most comprehensive dataset to date on products liability reforms and economic activity, I find that many reforms that restrict the scope of products liability improve economic conditions. Specifically, these reforms increase the number of businesses, employment, and production in the industries that face most …

The Role Of Federal Safety Regulations In Products Liability Actions, Teresa M. Schwartz

Vanderbilt Law Review

Product safety is the province of both the regulatory and the tort systems. Each system has come under attack in recent years on both the federal and state levels. Through its regulatory policies, appointments, and budget cuts, the Reagan Administration has weakened the federal regulatory system.' At the same time, the Administration has severely criticized the tort system. State legislatures have enacted a myriad of statutes that weaken the tort system by cutting back on the common-law rights of victims, and additional measures are pending in Congress and in state legislatures across the country.'

For the most part, proponents of …

Rethinking The Policies Of Strict Products Liability, David G. Owen

Vanderbilt Law Review

In the evolution of products liability law, therefore,should be the time for doing what usually comes late in the common-law process: to develop a system of fundamental social values and goals to be protected and advanced by the law in this area. Broadly stated, an appropriate balance between individual liberty and social welfare needs to be struck within a fair and workable adjudicatory system. Once a jurisprudential basis of this type has been set, we may then begin to develop a consistent set of principles tailored to this area of the law. It will then be possible to construct one …

Products Liability And Safety, Cases And Materials / Law, Intellect, And Education, Richard E. Speidel, Gene R. Shreve

Vanderbilt Law Review

Reviewed by Richard E. Speidel

In this brief review, I have attempted to determine whether this casebook makes the case for installing products liability and safety as an integral part of the law school curriculum. Admittedly, defective products pose an important social and legal problem with which lawyers are deeply involved. The question is, however, whether the casebook is, within the broader framework of contemporary legal education, both professionally relevant and educationally sound to a sufficient degree.

Reviewed by Gene R. Shreve.

This small book by a former dean of the University of Michigan Law School is the most confident …

Products Liability--Liability Of Transferee For Defective Products Manufactured By Transferor, P. Anthony Lannie

Vanderbilt Law Review

In the landmark decision, Greenman v. Yuba Power Products,Inc., , the California Supreme Court eliminated a similar barrier to consideration of products liability goals-the breach of warranty theory designed to meet the needs of commercial transactions. Justice Traynor addressed the central question-"When should the manufacturer be responsible to those injured by his products?"'-and concluded that "rules . . .that were developed to meet the needs of commercial transactions cannot properly be invoked to govern the manufacturer's liability to those injured by their defective products unless those rules also serve the purposes for which such liability is imposed."' Confronted with another …

Products Liability And Choice Of Law: The United States Proposals To The Hague Conference, Willis L.M. Reese

Vanderbilt Law Review

Among Dean Wade's many accomplishments is his recent appointment as a member of the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Private International Law. One of the functions of this Committee is to render advice on what position should be taken by the United States on the various matters considered by the Hague Conference on Private International Law. The initial topic considered at the first meeting of the Advisory Committee attended by Dean Wade was what should be the choice-of-law rules for products liability. It seems appropriate that in these essays written in his honor there should be mention of the …

Statutes Of Limitations: Their Selection And Application In Products Liability Cases, Larry T. Thrailkill

Vanderbilt Law Review

The development of products liability law has followed an arduous course, especially during the past 70 years.' Many serious problems have arisen out of consumer attempts to obtain redress from manufacturers of defective products. Many of these problems have been resolved, but the problem of selecting and applying the appropriate statute of limitations persists, causing confusion among jurists, legislators, and practitioners and yielding inconsistent and inequitable results. A hypothetical will illustrate the problem and provide a factual context within which the problem may be discussed.

In 1970, Plaintiff is injured and his home destroyed when a gas water heater explodes. …

Comment, Wex S. Malone

Vanderbilt Law Review

There is no discernible reluctance by courts to direct verdicts on the issue of the plaintiff's carelessness in suits by invitees against proprietors of business premises. The writer has had occasion to examine a representative group of about two hundred cases in this area where contributory negligence was seriously in issue. In more than a third of these disputes the appellate courts had either approved the trial judge's action in directing a defendant verdict, or had reversed a judgment for plaintiff because the trial court had allowed the controversy to reach the jury on the contributory negligence issue. I have …

Torts -- 1964 Tennessee Survey, Dix W. Noel

Vanderbilt Law Review

As usual, the Tennessee appellate courts decided a considerable number of tort cases last year, covering a wide variety of problems.There were no striking new developments. In fact, the two decisions which were awaited by the profession with the greatest interest, Kyker v. General Motors Corporation' and Texas Tunneling Co. v. City of Chattanooga, tend to slow down some modem developments. In the Kyker case, it was indicated that manufacturers are not yet strictly liable in Tennessee, at least on warranty grounds, without privity of contract. In the Texas Tunneling case, a federal court undertaking to apply Tennessee law placed …

Torts -- 1964 Tennessee Survey, Dix W. Noel

Vanderbilt Law Review

As usual, the Tennessee appellate courts decided a considerable number of tort cases last year, covering a wide variety of problems.There were no striking new developments. In fact, the two decisions which were awaited by the profession with the greatest interest, Kyker v. General Motors Corporation' and Texas Tunneling Co. v. City of Chattanooga, tend to slow down some modem developments. In the Kyker case, it was indicated that manufacturers are not yet strictly liable in Tennessee, at least on warranty grounds, without privity of contract. In the Texas Tunneling case, a federal court undertaking to apply Tennessee law placed …

The Duty To Warn Allergic Users Of Products, Dix W. Noel

Vanderbilt Law Review

There has been much recent development of the law in the field of products liability, and one of the more significant aspects of this development relates to harm suffered by allergic users of cosmetics, dyed clothing, and other familiar products. The medical descriptions of allergy are complicated and changing, but from a legal standpoint the significant factor is that an allergic reaction is one suffered by only a minority of the persons exposed to a particular substance. A description which brings out this factor is one which defines allergy or hyper-sensitivity as "the condition or state of an individual who …

Book Reviews, Edmund M. Morgan (Reviewer), Albert Williams (Reviewer), J. Warren Madden (Reviewer), Melvin M. Belli (Reviewer), George H. Tyne (Reviewer), William J. Bowe (Reviewer)

Vanderbilt Law Review

Book Reviews

The Hearsay Rule

By R. W. Baker

London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons,Ltd., 1950. Pp. xxi, 180

reviewer: Edmund M. Morgan

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Self-Incrimination: What Can an Accused Person be Compelled to Do?

By Fred E. Inbau

Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas, 1950.Pp. x, 91. $2.50

reviewer: Albert Williams

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Administrative Law

By Kenneth C. Davis

St. Paul: West Pub. Co.,1951. Pp. xvi, 1024. $8.00

Administrative Law: A Test

By Reginald Parker

Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1952. Pp. x, 344. $5.50

Administrative Agencies and the Courts

By Frank E. Cooper

Ann Arbor; University of Michigan Law School, 1951. Pp. …