Law Commons^™

Tort Liability And Unawareness, Surajeet Chakravarty, David Kelsey, Joshua C. Teitelbaum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

We explore the implications of unawareness for tort law. We study cases where injurers and victims initially are unaware that some acts can yield harmful consequences, or that some acts or harmful consequences are even possible, but later become aware. Following Karni and Vierø (2013), we model unawareness by Reverse Bayesianism. We compare the two basic liability rules of Anglo-American tort law, negligence and strict liability, and argue that negligence has an important advantage over strict liability in a world with unawareness—negligence, through the stipulation of due care standards, spreads awareness about the updated probability of harm.

America’S “Kia Boys”: The Problem, Responses, And Recommendations, Drew Thornley

Seattle University Law Review SUpra

The landscape of automobile theft in the United States has undergone a dramatic transformation, marked by a notable surge in the theft of Kia and Hyundai vehicles. Once regarded as a routine occurrence, car thefts have taken on a novel dimension, propelled by a phenomenon driven by digital culture and social media virality. The thefts of these specific car brands have evolved into what is now widely recognized as the "Kia Challenge," a term echoing across popular platforms like TikTok. In this challenge, young teenage individuals, often referred to as the "Kia Boys" or variations thereof, orchestrate daring car heists, …

Shields Up For Software, Derek E. Bambauer, Melanie J. Teplinsky

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article contends that the National Cybersecurity Strategy's software liability regime should incorporate two safe harbors. The first would shield software creators and vendors from liability for decisions related to design, implementation, and maintenance, as long as those choices follow enumerated best practices. The second—the “inverse safe harbor”—would have the opposite effect: coders and distributors who engaged in defined worst practices would automatically become liable. This Article explains the design, components, and justifications for these twin safe harbors. The software safe harbors are key parts of the overall design of the new liability regime and work in tandem with the …

Examining The New Standard Of Care For Medical Advice And Patients With Mental Health Conditions, Gary Kok Yew Chan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In 2017, the Singapore Court of Appeal in Hii Chii Kok v Oii Peng Jin London Lucien (Hii Chii Kok) favoured a patient-centric approach towards issues of providing medical advice. Section 37 of the Singapore Civil Law Act, which took effect on 1 July 2022, stipulates that the standard of care in giving medical advice to patients is based on peer professional opinion. This article will analyse, with reference to other common law jurisdictions, how the new statutory provision applies to patients with mental disorders under the Singapore Mental Capacity Act 2008. It will provide an interpretation of s 37 …

Differentiating Strict Products Liability’S Cost-Benefit Analysis From Negligence, Paul F. Rothstein, Ronald J. Coleman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Dangerous products may give rise to colossal liability for commercial actors. Indeed, in 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in Johnson & Johnson v. Ingham, permitting a more than two billion dollar products liability damages award to stand. In his dissenting opinion in another recent products liability case, Air and Liquid Systems Corp. v. DeVries, Justice Gorsuch declared that “[t]ort law is supposed to be about aligning liability with responsibility.” However, in the products liability context, there have been ongoing debates concerning how best to set legal rules and standards on tort liability. Are general principles of …

Tort Theory And The Restatement, In Retrospect, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

This is my third paper on the Restatement (Third) of Torts. In my first paper, The Theory of Tort Doctrine and the Restatement (Third) of Torts, I offered a positive economic theory of the tort doctrine that had been presented in the Restatement (Third) of Torts: General Principles, and also an optimistic vision of how positive theoretical analysis could be integrated with the Restatement project. In my second paper, The Economics of the Restatement and of the Common Law, I set out the utilitarian-economic theory of how the common law litigation process could generate optimal (efficient, wealth-maximizing) rules and compared …

Tort Law: Cases And Commentaries, Samuel Beswick

All Faculty Publications

The law of obligations concerns the legal rights and duties owed between people. Three primary categories make up the common law of obligations: tort, contract, and unjust enrichment. This coursebook provides an introduction to tort law: the law that recognises and responds to civil wrongdoing. The material is arranged in two parts. Part I comprises §§1-11 and addresses intentional and dignitary torts and the overarching theories and goals of tort law. Part II comprises §§12-25 and addresses no-fault compensation schemes, negligence, nuisance, strict liability, and tort law’s place within our broader legal systems.

Themes explored within this coursebook include:

• …

Computational Complexity And Tort Deterrence, Joshua C. Teitelbaum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Standard formulations of the economic model of tort deterrence constitute the injurer as the unboundedly rational bad man. Unbounded rationality implies that the injurer can always compute the solution to his care-taking problem. This in turn implies that optimal liability rules can provide robust deterrence, for they can always induce the injurer to take socially optimal care. In this paper I examine the computational complexity of the injurer's care-taking problem. I show that the injurer's problem is computationally tractable when the precaution set is unidimensional or convex, but that it is computationally intractable when the precaution set is multidimensional and …

The Euclid Proviso, Ezra Rosser

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This Article argues that the Euclid Proviso, which allows regional concerns to trump local zoning when required by the general welfare, should play a larger role in zoning's second century. Traditional zoning operates to severely limit the construction of additional housing. This locks in the advantages of homeowners but at tremendous cost, primarily in the form of unaffordable housing, to those who would like to join the community. State preemption of local zoning defies traditional categorization; it is at once both radically destabilizing and market-responsive. But, given the ways in which zoning is a foundational part of the racial and …

Maintenance Of Water And Sewer Infrastructure In Response To Sea Level Rise In Massachusetts, Melissa Chalek

Marine Affairs Institute Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Keeping Ai Under Observation: Anticipated Impacts On Physicians' Standard Of Care, Iria Giuffrida, Taylor Treece

Faculty Publications

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools become increasingly present across industries, concerns have started to emerge as to their impact on professional liability. Specifically, for the medical industry--in many ways an inherently "risky" business--hospitals and physicians have begun evaluating the impact of Al tools on their professional malpractice risk. This Essay seeks to address that question, zooming in on how AI may affect physicians' standard of care for medical malpractice claims.

Accountability, Eugenics, And Reproductive Justice, Susan Frelich Appleton

Scholarship@WashULaw

This analysis contributes to an online symposium on Dov Fox’s book BIRTH RIGHTS AND WRONGS: HOW MEDICINE AND TECHNOLOGY ARE CHANGING REPRODUCTION AND THE LAW. Using eugenics and reproductive justice as points of departure, this review highlights both strengths and weaknesses in Fox’s approach.

Should Automakers Be Responsible For Accidents?, Kyle D. Logue

Articles

Motor vehicles are among the most dangerous products sold anywhere. Automobiles pose a larger risk of accidental death than any other product, except perhaps opioids. Annual autocrash deaths in the United States have not been below 30,000 since the 1940s, reaching a recent peak of roughly 40,000 in 2016. And the social cost of auto crashes goes beyond deaths. Auto-accident victims who survive often incur extraordinary medical expenses. Those crash victims whose injuries render them unable to work experience lost income. Auto accidents also cause nontrivial amounts of property damage—mostly to the automobiles themselves, but also to highways, bridges, or …

The Role Of Fault In § 1983 Municipal Liability, Michael Wells

Scholarly Works

Under Monell v. Department of Social Services, local governments are not vicariously liable for constitutional violations committed by their employees. Those governments, however, are liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations committed by "policymaking" officials. In the face of these two principles, courts have struggled with cases in which an underling commits a constitutional violation and the claim of municipal liability is based on a policymaker's failure to prevent it. The government can be liable in these "indirect-effect" cases for a policymaker's "deliberate indifference" to safeguarding constitutional rights, a standard that demands an even greater showing of culpability than …

Healthism In Tort Law, Elizabeth Weeks

Scholarly Works

This article draws on the author's recently published book, Healthism: Health Status Discrimination and the Law (with Jessica L. Roberts) (Cambridge University Press 2018), examining tort law doctrine and policy for examples of differential treatment of health status or behaviors. Just as scholars previously have drawn attention to discrimination based on race, sex, age, and other protected categories in tort law, the article urges similar examination of tort law's potential to discriminate against the unhealthy. The article discusses the potential for healthism in the reasonably prudent person standard of care, contributory negligence, assumption of the risk, noneconomic damages caps, impaired …

"Decisional" And "Operational" Negligence, Vincent Ooi

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article draws a distinction between “decisional” negligence, which concerns the negligence exhibited by a professional advising his client in a decision to pursue a course of action, and “operational” negligence which concerns the manner in which a professional acts upon his client’s instructions to pursue a course of action. With the advent of Montgomery, the distinction between the two kinds of negligence has been thrown into focus in the context of medical negligence. The distinction is an important one for two reasons: 1) the “standard of care” test to be applied; and 2) the measure of damages.

Liability For Unintentional Nuisances: How The Restatement Of Torts Almost Negligently Killed The Right To Exclude In Property Law, Jill M. Fraley

Scholarly Articles

This article argues that nuisance was historically unique in tort law because of its special role in protecting property rights.' In other words, nuisance historically had distinct features addressed to the special situation of land. Most importantly, nuisance protected the right to exclude in a way that no other cause of action did. The Second Restatement's change then diminished our rights to private property to the extent that it has been adopted. The majority of courts retain the more logical and defensible position--that property rights are special and nuisance encompasses something more than the idea of negligence.

Negligent Entrustment In Gun Industry Litigation: A Primer, Kate E. Britt

Law Librarian Scholarship

Deep pocket jurisprudence, where plaintiffs name corporations as codefendants of less wealthy individual tortfeasors, is not uncommon in tort litigation. When the plaintiffs are victims of gun violence and the corporate defendants are firearms manufacturers, however, these suits are particularly controversial. Instead of aiming to make the victims whole, these suits are opposed (or supported) as attempts to regulate the firearms industry on a widespread basis. This article explores some of the resources available to understand the recent history of suits against firearms manufacturers.

The Macpherson-Henningsen Puzzle, Victor P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

In the landmark case of MacPherson v. Buick, an automobile company was held liable for negligence notwithstanding a lack of privity with the injured driver. Four decades later, in Henningsen v. Bloomfield Motors, the court held unconscionable the standard automobile company warranty which limited its responsibility to repair and replacement, even in a case involving physical injury. This suggests a puzzle: if it were so easy for firms to contract out of liability, did MacPherson accomplish anything?

Clark Cty. Sch. Dist. V. Payo, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 79 (Oct. 26, 2017), Alma Orozco

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Implied assumption of the risk does not apply when a student is required to participate in a physical education class because the doctrine’s “voluntariness” element is not satisfied. Discretionary-function immunity does not apply when cases allege inadequate supervision or instruction because such decisions, while discretionary, are not policy-based, as the discretionary-immunity test requires. Decisions are not entitled to discretionary-function immunity unless they entail governmental planning or policy formulation, which involves economic, social, and political considerations.

Arkansas, Meet Tarasoff: The Question Of Expanded Liability To Third Persons For Mental Health Professionals, J. Thomas Sullivan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Search For A Grand Unified Theory Of Tort Law., Scott Hershovitz

Reviews

Theorists like to do a lot with a little. And not just because simple theories seem more elegant: we deepen our understanding when we learn that disparate phenomena are linked together. In physics, for example, the theory of thermodynamics showed us the relationship between mechanics and heat. In economics, the theory of the firm showed us that, across industries that look nothing alike, a simple principle helps explain the organization of economic activity. Of course, there is no guarantee that the disparate phenomena we suspect are linked actually are. Particle physicists continue to search for a Grand Unified Theory, which …

Gun Control Through Tort Law, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

I have been asked to respond to an article by Professor Andrew Jay McClurg that recently appeared in the Florida Law Review. In this article, the author, a longtime advocate of firearms regulation, argues that owners and commercial sellers of firearms who negligently fail to secure them against theft should be held liable when persons are killed or injured by firearms used in the commission of a crime.

In the past, believing that existing federal and state laws were inadequate to halt the spread of gun-related deaths and injuries, proponents of stricter gun control measures proposed a number of tort …

Outlining The Case For A Common Law Duty Of Care Of Business To Exercise Human Rights Due Diligence, Douglass Cassell

Journal Articles

This article outlines the case for a business duty of care to exercise human rights due diligence, judicially enforceable in common law countries by tort suits for negligence brought by persons whose potential injuries were reasonably foreseeable. A parent company’s duty of care would extend to the human rights impacts of all entities in the enterprise, including subsidiaries. A company would not be liable for breach of the duty of care if it proves that it reasonably exercised due diligence as set forth in the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. On the other hand, a company’s failure to …

Finding Common Law Duty Of Care From Statutory Duties: All Within The Anns Framework, Gary Kok Yew Chan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This paper examines the relationship between statutory duties and the common law duty of care in the tort of negligence. There are apparently divergent judicial statements on the general approach towards duty of care to be owed by persons under a statutory duty. One central question arises: should the courts treat the common law duty of care as subsisting generally unless it is excluded by the statute or must the plaintiff show that the Parliament intended to confer a private right of action or impose a common law duty? This paper argues that the two approaches may be properly accommodated …

Driverless Cars And The Much Delayed Tort Law Revolution, Andrzej Rapaczynski

Faculty Scholarship

The most striking development in the American tort law of the last century was the quick rise and fall of strict manufacturers’ liability for the huge social losses associated with the use of industrial products. The most important factor in this process has been the inability of the courts and academic commentators to develop a workable theory of design defects, resulting in a wholesale return of negligence as the basis of products liability jurisprudence. This article explains the reasons for this failure and argues that the development of digital technology, and the advent of self-driving cars in particular, is likely …

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 …

Newsroom: Logan On Drone Law, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Hitting A Home Run In Your Writing, David Spratt

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

European Legal Development: The Case Of Tort: Comparative Studies In The Development Of The Law Of Tort In Europe, Vol 9, Anthony Sebok

Articles

This review addresses volumes 7-9 of the series Comparative Studies in the Development of the Law of Torts in Europe, edited by John Bell and David Ibbetson and published by Cambridge University Press.