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Full-Text Articles in Law
Out Of The Black Hole: Toward A Fresh Approach To Tort Causation, Allan C. Hutchinson
Out Of The Black Hole: Toward A Fresh Approach To Tort Causation, Allan C. Hutchinson
Dalhousie Law Journal
The present state of Canadian doctrine on causation in tort law is in serious disarray Judges and jurists persist in thinking that it is a factual inquiry separate from policy concerns. This is made obvious in the recent Supreme Court decision in Clements and in the academic commentary around it. In contrast, I insist that the requirement of causation must be understood as being entirely part of the broader debate on the goals and policies of tort law generally Causation is a topic drenched with normative values and should be treated as such.
Causation And Standard Of Proof From An Economic Perspective, Bruno Deffains, Claude Fluet, Maiva Ropaul
Causation And Standard Of Proof From An Economic Perspective, Bruno Deffains, Claude Fluet, Maiva Ropaul
Chicago-Kent Law Review
Causation is a problematic notion, as explained by Ronald Coase regarding the “bilateral nature” of externalities. However, causation has played only a minor role in standard economic models of civil liability. An exception is the sub-literature on Uncertainty Over Causation and the Determination of Civil Liability, the benchmark paper written by Steven Shavell in 1985: “. . . the familiar notion that for parties to be led to reduce accident risks appropriately, they should generally face probability-discounted or ‘expected’ liability equal to the increase in expected losses that they create. This, of course, is naturally the case in the absence …
Causation In Hepatitis B. Vaccination Litigation In France: Breaking Through Scientific Uncertainty?, Jean-Sebastien Borghetti
Causation In Hepatitis B. Vaccination Litigation In France: Breaking Through Scientific Uncertainty?, Jean-Sebastien Borghetti
Chicago-Kent Law Review
Vaccination against hepatitis B has been available since 1982 and is strongly recommended by most health professionals. In France, the hepatitis B vaccine is very widespread, but it has come under suspicion that it can cause demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis. Several epidemiological studies have been carried out to discover if there is indeed a connection between the hepatitis B vaccination and demyelinating diseases, but no such connection has been established so far. Many cases have nevertheless been brought before French courts, in which plaintiffs argue that they have developed a demyelinating disease due to the hepatitis B vaccination, …
Economic Analysis Of Liability Apportionment Among Multiple Tortfeasors: A Survey, And Perspectives In Large-Scale Risks Management, Julien Jacob, Bruno Lovat
Economic Analysis Of Liability Apportionment Among Multiple Tortfeasors: A Survey, And Perspectives In Large-Scale Risks Management, Julien Jacob, Bruno Lovat
Chicago-Kent Law Review
The economic analysis of civil liability aims to demonstrate how the civil liability system can be set to provide the potential injurers with optimal incentives to regulate the level of risk they bear. However, despite a wide range of applications, there are few studies on the apportionment of liability between several tortfeasors. In this article, we especially focus on the case of an industrial activity involving a firm, whose activity is potentially harmful for the society, and one of its input providers. They both have an impact on the level of risk through an effort in care and quality. After …
Causation In Cases Of Evidential Uncertainty: Juridical Techniques And Fundamental Issues, Ken Oliphant
Causation In Cases Of Evidential Uncertainty: Juridical Techniques And Fundamental Issues, Ken Oliphant
Chicago-Kent Law Review
This paper reviews from a comparative legal perspective the range of juridical techniques that have been developed in different legal systems to address perceived problems of uncertain alternative causation. It finds that the process of development has generally proceeded in an ad hoc and unprincipled fashion, without regard for overall coherence. It argues for a more principled legal approach in which the appropriate legal response (full liability, proportional liability or no liability) is adopted on the basis of a ranking of the different categories of cases in which problems of causal uncertainty can arise, reflecting the strength (or weakness) of …
Overdetermined Causation Cases, Contribution And The Shapley Value, Samuel Ferey, Pierre Dehez
Overdetermined Causation Cases, Contribution And The Shapley Value, Samuel Ferey, Pierre Dehez
Chicago-Kent Law Review
The overdetermined causation cases (duplicative causation, concurrent causes, etc.) challenge the consistency and relevance of the but for test in torts. A strict application of the but for criterion to these cases leads to paradoxes and solutions that violate common sense. This explains why a large amount of literature has been developed in philosophy and jurisprudence to provide more accurate causation criteria. This paper adds to this literature by considering over-determination cases from an economic and mathematical point of view. Following Martin van Hees and Matthew Braham in their 2009 article Degrees of Causation, we consider over-determined cases through cooperative …
Material Contribution To Risk In The Canadian Law Of Toxic Torts, Lynda M. Collins
Material Contribution To Risk In The Canadian Law Of Toxic Torts, Lynda M. Collins
Chicago-Kent Law Review
Causation is acknowledged as the single biggest hurdle to recovery for plaintiffs in toxic tort actions in Canada (and elsewhere). Scientific uncertainty involving questions of both generic and specific causation has frequently precluded recovery for plaintiffs even where defendants have negligently exposed them to toxic risk. Three types of uncertainty have been identified: plaintiff indeterminacy (where we know that the defendant has harmed some proportion of a particular population but no individual can prove causation); defendant indeterminacy (where we know that a group of defendants has harmed a particular plaintiff or plaintiffs but each can escape liability by pointing the …
Attribution Of Liability: An Economic Analysis Of Various Cases, Michael Faure
Attribution Of Liability: An Economic Analysis Of Various Cases, Michael Faure
Chicago-Kent Law Review
In many cases liability is attributed in a different way than through the clear cut situation where one tortfeasor causes harm to one single victim. Those cases of complicated attributions in tort law are analyzed in this article from an economic perspective. After briefly sketching the economic starting points in section II, the way in which multiple tortfeasors are dealt with in the law is analyzed in section III. Section IV analyzes the perspective of multiple tortfeasors in law and economics, distinguishing between the situations of full solvency, insolvency and insurability of more particularly joint and several liability. The article …