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Draft Of Fair Use In Oracle: Proximate Cause At The Copyright/Patent Divide - 2019, Wendy J. Gordon
Draft Of Fair Use In Oracle: Proximate Cause At The Copyright/Patent Divide - 2019, Wendy J. Gordon
Scholarship Chronologically
This Paper was presented at the conference, "A Celebration of the Work of Wendy Gordon," at Boston University school of law on June 14, 2019. In presented an earlier draft under the title, Transformative Use, Proximate Cause, and Copyright, at the University of Texas at Austin on March 23, 2017. Under the title, Inegrating Judge Legal's Theory of Fair Use into on Economic View of Copyright Law: From "proximate Cause" to "Transormative Use," the paper was also presented at the March, 2016, "Conference on IP and Private Law," held at Harvard Law School. I am grateful to …
Arkansas, Meet Tarasoff: The Question Of Expanded Liability To Third Persons For Mental Health Professionals, J. Thomas Sullivan
Arkansas, Meet Tarasoff: The Question Of Expanded Liability To Third Persons For Mental Health Professionals, J. Thomas Sullivan
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Causing Copyright, Shyamkrishna Balganesh
Causing Copyright, Shyamkrishna Balganesh
All Faculty Scholarship
Copyright protection attaches to an original work of expression the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible medium. Yet, modern copyright law contains no viable mechanism by which to examine whether someone is causally responsible for the creation and fixation of the work. Whenever the issue of causation arises, copyright law relies on its preexisting doctrinal devices to resolve the issue, in the process cloaking its intuitions about causation in altogether extraneous considerations. This Article argues that copyright law embodies an unstated, yet distinct theory of authorial causation, which connects the element of human agency to a work …
Negligence And Two-Sided Causation, Keith N. Hylton, Haizhen Lin, Hyo-Youn Chu
Negligence And Two-Sided Causation, Keith N. Hylton, Haizhen Lin, Hyo-Youn Chu
Faculty Scholarship
We extend the economic analysis of negligence and intervening causation to "two-sided causation" scenarios. In the two-sided causation scenario the effectiveness of the injurer's care depends on some intervention, and the risk of harm generated by the injurer's failure to take care depends on some other intervention. We find that the distortion from socially optimal care is more severe in the two-sided causation scenario than in the one-sided causation scenario, and generally in the direction of excessive care. The practical lesson is that the likelihood that injurers will have optimal care incentives under the negligence test in the presence of …
Information And Causation In Tort Law: Generalizing The Learned Hand Test For Causation Cases, Keith N. Hylton
Information And Causation In Tort Law: Generalizing The Learned Hand Test For Causation Cases, Keith N. Hylton
Faculty Scholarship
This paper discusses the economics of causation in tort law, describing precise implications for precautionary incentives when courts are and are not perfectly informed. With precautionary incentives identified, we can ask whether the causation inquiry enhances welfare, and if so under what conditions. Perhaps the most important innovation applies to the Hand Formula. When causation is an issue, the probability of causal intervention should be part of the Hand test, and the generalized Hand test offers a method of distinguishing significant classes of causation cases. I close with implications for the moral significance of causation and for economic analysis of …
Negligence, Causation, And Incentives For Care, Keith N. Hylton, Haizhen Lin
Negligence, Causation, And Incentives For Care, Keith N. Hylton, Haizhen Lin
Faculty Scholarship
We present a new model of negligence and causation and examine the influence of the negligence test, in the presence of intervening causation, on the level of care. In this model, the injurer's decision to take care reduces the likelihood of an accident only in the event that some nondeterministic intervention occurs. The effects of the negligence test depend on the information available to the court, and the manner in which the test is implemented. The key effect of the negligence test, in the presence of intervening causation, is to induce actors to take into account the distribution of the …
The Persistence Of Proximate Cause: How Legal Doctrine Thrives On Skepticism, Jessie Allen
The Persistence Of Proximate Cause: How Legal Doctrine Thrives On Skepticism, Jessie Allen
Articles
This Article starts with a puzzle: Why is the doctrinal approach to “proximate cause” so resilient despite longstanding criticism? Proximate cause is a particularly extreme example of doctrine that limps along despite near universal consensus that it cannot actually determine legal outcomes. Why doesn’t that widely recognized indeterminacy disable proximate cause as a decision-making device? To address this puzzle, I pick up a cue from the legal realists, a group of skeptical lawyers, law professors, and judges, who, in the 1920s and 1930s, compared legal doctrine to ritual magic. I take that comparison seriously, perhaps more seriously, and definitely in …
New Private Law Theory And Tort Law: A Comment, Keith N. Hylton
New Private Law Theory And Tort Law: A Comment, Keith N. Hylton
Faculty Scholarship
This comment was prepared for the Harvard Law Review symposium on “The New Private Law,” as a response to Benjamin Zipursky’s principal paper on torts. I find Zipursky’s reliance on Cardozo’s Palsgraf opinion as a foundational source of tort theory troubling, for two reasons. First, Cardozo fails to offer a consistent theoretical framework for tort law in his opinions, many of which are difficult to reconcile with one another. Second, Palsgraf should be understood as an effort by Cardozo to provide greater predictability, within a special class of proximate cause cases, by reallocating decision-making power from juries to judges. It …
Minnesota Negligence Law And The Restatement (Third) Of Torts: Liability For Physical And Emotional Harms, Michael K. Steenson
Minnesota Negligence Law And The Restatement (Third) Of Torts: Liability For Physical And Emotional Harms, Michael K. Steenson
Faculty Scholarship
The purpose of this article is to provide a foundation for judges and lawyers, primarily in Minnesota, who are seeking to understand how the Third Restatement’s approach to negligence law fits with Minnesota negligence law. The first Part of the article examines the approach of the Third Restatement. Because decisions in other states applying the Third Restatement will be important for courts in Minnesota and elsewhere in deciding whether to apply the Third Restatement, the second Part examines early reports on the Third Restatement in Iowa, Nebraska, Arizona, Wisconsin, Tennessee, and Delaware.
Mixing Oil And Water: Reconciling The Substantial Factor And Results-With-In-The-Risk Approaches To Proximate Cause, Peter Zablotsky
Mixing Oil And Water: Reconciling The Substantial Factor And Results-With-In-The-Risk Approaches To Proximate Cause, Peter Zablotsky
Scholarly Works
No abstract provided.
Duty In Tort Law: An Economic Approach, Keith N. Hylton
Duty In Tort Law: An Economic Approach, Keith N. Hylton
Faculty Scholarship
Theories of tort law have focused on the breach and causation components of negligence, saying little if anything about duty. This paper provides a positive economic theory of duty doctrine. The theory that best explains duty doctrines in tort law is the same as the theory that explains strict liability doctrine. The core function of both sets of doctrines is to regulate the frequency or scale of activities that have substantial external effects. Strict liability aims to suppress or tax activities that carry unusually large external costs. Duty doctrines, especially those relieving actors of a duty of care, serve several …
Tell Me What You Eat, And I Will Tell Whom To Sue: Big Trouble Ahead For “Big Food"?, Richard C. Ausness
Tell Me What You Eat, And I Will Tell Whom To Sue: Big Trouble Ahead For “Big Food"?, Richard C. Ausness
Law Faculty Scholarly Articles
Overweight consumers are seeking damages from purveyors of fast food for obesity-related health problems. Plaintiffs claim that products that are high in fat, sugar, salt and cholesterol are defective. Other potential liability theories include product category liability, failure to warn, failure to disclose nutritional information, deceptive advertising, and negligent marketing. However, in order to prevail at trial, plaintiffs must overcome problems with causation, duty and proximate cause, shifting responsibility, federal preemption, comparative fault, and assumption of risk. If such litigation is successful, it may induce fast-food companies to produce healthier products. Nevertheless, this Article concludes that the problem of obesity, …
Public Tort Litigation: Public Benefit Or Public Nuisance?, Richard C. Ausness
Public Tort Litigation: Public Benefit Or Public Nuisance?, Richard C. Ausness
Law Faculty Scholarly Articles
One of the latest developments in products liability law is "public tort" litigation. Public tort or government-sponsored lawsuits are actions by federal, state, or local government entities to recover the cost of public services provided to persons who have been injured as the result of a defendant's alleged misconduct. The best known example is the tobacco litigation of the mid-1990s in which more than forty states brought suit against the leading tobacco companies to recoup the cost of providing health care services to indigent smokers. Eventually, the tobacco companies agreed to pay the states more than $200 billion and also …
The Application Of Product Liability Principles To Publishers Of Violent Or Sexually Explicit Material, Richard C. Ausness
The Application Of Product Liability Principles To Publishers Of Violent Or Sexually Explicit Material, Richard C. Ausness
Law Faculty Scholarly Articles
There have been a number of tragic incidents during the past few years in which mentally unstable teenagers have carried guns into school and shot teachers and fellow students. These schoolyard killings have generated an intense debate about the problem of violence in our society. Some social commentators have attributed teenage violence to the widespread availability of firearms, while others blame parental neglect, lack of discipline in the schools, or the declining influence of religion and morality in contemporary culture. However, another source of concern is the popular media, which stands accused of purveying sex and violence on a massive …
Eliminating Proximate Cause As An Element Of The Prima Facie Case From Strict Products Liability, Peter Zablotsky
Eliminating Proximate Cause As An Element Of The Prima Facie Case From Strict Products Liability, Peter Zablotsky
Scholarly Works
No abstract provided.
Products Liability-Proximate Cause, Intervening Cause, And Duty, David A. Fischer
Products Liability-Proximate Cause, Intervening Cause, And Duty, David A. Fischer
Faculty Publications
The primary emphasis of this article will be on the application of proximate cause in strict liability cases involving physical harm to person or property. This includes breach of implied warranty cases causing physical harm as well as strict tort liability cases. For purposes of the matters discussed in this article, the two theories are essentially the same. The major difference between the theories is that warranty law may recognize some contract defenses that do not apply in strict tort cases. The article will also discuss negligence cases for purposes of comparison and contrast with the strict liability cases. This …
Protection Of Shipowners’ Liability Under United States Law And Marine Insurance Practice, Izak Stephanus Fourie
Protection Of Shipowners’ Liability Under United States Law And Marine Insurance Practice, Izak Stephanus Fourie
LLM Theses and Essays
Shipowners are exposed to a variety of risks that are, to a large extent, unique to maritime business. Because of factors like the recent increase in the size and value of ships, increase in marine traffic, enactment of legislation imposing new liabilities, and the tendency of courts to make huge awards to personal injury and death claims, shipowners are exposed to potential losses or claims worth millions of dollars in the event of disaster. These heavy risks led to the establishment of the marine insurance industry, as well as the enactment of legislation that limits shipowners’ liability. This legislation was …
Wrongful Dishonor, James J. White
Wrongful Dishonor, James J. White
Other Publications
Uniform Commercial Code section 4-402. I. Basic Liability II. Damages III. Miscellaneous Asides
Kentucky Law Survey: Torts, Richard C. Ausness
Kentucky Law Survey: Torts, Richard C. Ausness
Law Faculty Scholarly Articles
This article provides a survey of Kentucky legal developments in the area of tort law. During the past term the Kentucky Court of Appeals was quite active in the area of torts. The Court considered cases involving battery, nuisance, products liability and negligence. The negligence decisions dealt with a defendant's standard of care, contributory negligence, and last clear chance. Four of these cases have been selected for examination in this article.
Liability Without Fault And Proximate Cause, Fowler V. Harper
Liability Without Fault And Proximate Cause, Fowler V. Harper
Articles by Maurer Faculty
No abstract provided.