Law Commons^™

Book Review: Tom Baker's The Medical Malpractice Myth, Barbara A. Noah

Faculty Scholarship

The Author reviews THE MEDICAL MALPRACTICE MYTH by Tom Baker, published by University of Chicago Press, 2005. Baker’s book confronts the idea that medical malpractice litigation is exploding and underserving plaintiffs and that their attorneys receive unjustified rewards while physicians struggle under the burden of high costs. The book strives to debunk the various aspects of this myth and offers directions for reform. Throughout the book, Baker very effectively connects the legal arguments and the insurance and litigation data to his broader points about the politics of tort reform. Baker’s style is concise, lively, and very readable. He effectively weaves …

A Cap On The Defendant's Appeal Bond?: Punitive Damages Tort Reform, Doug Rendleman

Scholarly Articles

None available.

The Logic Of Legal Remedies And The Relative Weight Of Norms: Assessing The Public Interest In The Tort Reform Debate, Irma S. Russell

Faculty Law Review Articles

This article calls for consideration of the relationship of strong social norms to the tort reform debate. Additionally, it inquires into the concepts of measuring and comparing interests and the judgments of proportionality inherent in traditional legal doctrines, scrutinizing in particular the methodology of comparisons in tort reform.

Part II of the article examines the need to identify, measure, and compare the interests at stake in any legal contest with rigorous consistency.

Part III explores the natural hierarchy among legal norms and the weight accorded various types of interests that deserve legal protection.

Part IV considers the system of measurement …

The Character Of The Minnesota Tort System, Michael K. Steenson

Faculty Scholarship

The specific focus of this article is whether the Minnesota tort system is progressive. The answer to that question depends on a number of other questions. First, what are the components of the tort system? Second, what are the primary motivating principles of the system? Third, how is the term “progressive” defined for purposes of evaluating the system, and as applied to the tort system, what conclusions does it yield? Other questions might be whether the tort system in Minnesota is liberal, or conservative, or, perhaps, moderate, with the overriding question of whether those labels make any difference.

Congressional Power And State Court Jurisdiction, Anthony J. Bellia

Journal Articles

Federal laws that regulate state institutions give rise to what the Supreme Court has described as the oldest question of constitutional law. In recent years, the Court has confronted questions of congressional power to regulate state legislatures and executives, but has not directly confronted any question of congressional power to regulate state courts. Since the Founding, questions of congressional power to regulate state court jurisdiction of Article III cases have arisen - most notably, congressional power to assign jurisdiction of federal criminal cases to state courts. Today, significant questions of congressional power to regulate state court jurisdiction over non-Article III …