Law Commons^™

The Hidden Victims Of Tort Reform: Women, Children, And The Elderly, Lucinda M. Finley

Journal Articles

I have conducted empirical research from several states on how juries in medical malpractice and other tort suits allocate their damage awards between economic loss damages and noneconomic loss damages. I then compared cases in which men are the victims and cases in which women are the victims. This research demonstrates that while overall men tend to recover greater total damages, juries consistently award women more in noneconomic loss damages than men, and that the noneconomic portion of women's total damage awards is significantly greater than the percentage of men's tort recoveries attributable to noneconomic damages. Consequently, any cap on …

The First Bite Is Free: Employer Liability For Sexual Harassment, Joanna L. Grossman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

In June, 1998, the Supreme Court issued two decisions, Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth and Faragher v. City of Boca Raton that established new standards for employer liability for sexual harassment. Although the two cases presented different questions and factual predicates, the Court adopted a unified holding with respect to employer liability for supervisor harassment. Many commentators interpreted the new standards as a blow to employers based on the perception that employers would now be held accountable for workplace harassment without regard to their culpability.

The thesis of this article is that the conventional wisdom with respect to Faragher and …