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Full-Text Articles in Law

Cases And Materials On The Law Of Torts, 5th Edition, Harry Shulman, Fleming Jones, Oscar Gray, Donald Gifford Nov 2011

Cases And Materials On The Law Of Torts, 5th Edition, Harry Shulman, Fleming Jones, Oscar Gray, Donald Gifford

Oscar S. Gray

This casebook is designed for the professor who takes seriously the often-articulated goals of teaching case analysis and the impact of social and economic factors on the common law. Enough of the majority opinions, and often the dissenting opinions, is presented to illustrate how the cases fit together with precedents and to enable students to evaluate competing arguments. The latest edition, though streamlined from previous editions, adds both coverage of emerging areas of liability, including claims under the alien tort statute, and traditional torts applied in new factual contexts, such as cyberspace and biomedical engineering.


Harper, James And Gray On Torts, 3rd Edition, Fowler Harper, Fleming James, Oscar Gray Nov 2011

Harper, James And Gray On Torts, 3rd Edition, Fowler Harper, Fleming James, Oscar Gray

Oscar S. Gray

This preeminent work on torts is the most complete, authoritative resource analyzing the latest developments in this turbulent field of practice. Harper, James and Gray on Torts, Third Edition, newly revised and updated in a six-volume set, gives you detailed, up-to-date information and expert guidance on such rapidly changing areas as:

  • Health care liability
  • Standards for damages
  • Product liability
  • Defamation
  • Assumption of risk
  • Business torts
  • Liability for emotional distress
  • Pure economic loss
  • Privacy
  • Family torts
  • Comparative and contributory negligence
  • Governmental liability
  • Duties of owners and occupiers of land
  • Misrepresentation and nondisclosure
  • Malicious prosecution and abuse of process
  • Liability for abnormally …


A Theory Of Discipline For Professional Misconduct, Nadia Sawicki Feb 2011

A Theory Of Discipline For Professional Misconduct, Nadia Sawicki

Nadia N. Sawicki

State medical boards derive their licensure and disciplinary authority from the police powers reserved to the states under the 10th Amendment. Though it is clear that public health, safety, and welfare are well-served by the educational and examination requirements uniformly imposed upon medical professionals, many medical practice acts also authorize discipline for professional misconduct that does not directly implicate clinical competence or patient safety - for example, being convicted of a felony or a crime of moral turpitude, failing to comply with a child support order, providing expert opinion to a court without reasonable investigation, ordering unnecessary laboratory tests, engaging …


Compliance With Advance Directives: Wrongful Living And Tort Law Incentives, Holly Lynch, Michele Mathes, Nadia Sawicki Feb 2011

Compliance With Advance Directives: Wrongful Living And Tort Law Incentives, Holly Lynch, Michele Mathes, Nadia Sawicki

Nadia N. Sawicki

Modern ethical and legal norms generally require that deference be accorded to patients' decisions regarding treatment, including decisions to refuse life-sustaining care, even when patients no longer have the capacity to communicate those decisions to their physicians. Advance directives were developed as a means by which a patient's autonomy regarding medical care might survive such incapacity. Unfortunately, preserving patient autonomy at the end of life has been no simple task. First, it has been difficult to persuade patients to prepare for incapacity by making their wishes known. Second, even when they have done so, there is a distinct possibility that …


The Disappearing Opt-Out Right In Punitive Damages Class Actions, Richard Frankel Dec 2010

The Disappearing Opt-Out Right In Punitive Damages Class Actions, Richard Frankel

Richard H. Frankel

One of the most pressing issues in punitive damages law today is how to protect defendants from multiple punitive damages awards for a single course of conduct, while still ensuring that wronged plaintiffs can recover punitive damages. Numerous commentators have proposed non-opt-out class actions for punitive damages as the best solution to the multiple punishment problem because they subject defendants to a single collective punitive damages award that can be distributed equitably across all injured plaintiffs. This Article takes a contrary view. It argues that mandatory classes improperly deprive class plaintiffs of their right to opt out and pursue their …


Technology & Torts: A Theory Of Memory Costs, Nondurable Precautions And Interference Effects, Ben Depoorter Dec 2010

Technology & Torts: A Theory Of Memory Costs, Nondurable Precautions And Interference Effects, Ben Depoorter

Ben Depoorter

This Article examines the influence of nondurable precaution technologies on the expansion of tort awards. We provide four contributions to the literature. First, we present a general, formal model on durable and non-durable precaution technology that focuses on memory costs. Second, because liability exposure creates interference, we argue that tort law perpetuates the expansion of awards. Third, because plaintiffs do not consider the social costs of interference effects, private litigation induces socially excessive suits. Fourth, while new harm-reducing technologies likely increase accident rates, such technologies also raise the ratio of trial costs to harm, leaving undetermined the overall effect of …


Why Civil Recourse Theory Is Incomplete, Christopher Robinette Dec 2010

Why Civil Recourse Theory Is Incomplete, Christopher Robinette

Christopher J Robinette

The latest prominent theory of torts is the rich “civil recourse” theory of Professors John C. P. Goldberg and Benjamin C. Zipursky. Pursuant to civil recourse, tort is a law of wrongs. Specifically, tort law’s purpose is “providing victims with an avenue of civil recourse against those who have wrongfully injured them.” As such, Goldberg & Zipursky, with certain de minimis exceptions, deny that tort’s purpose is to serve as an instrument to achieve social and public policy goals.

Although I agree with Goldberg & Zipursky that wrongs are an essential component of tort law, their exclusion of instrumentalist concerns, …


Tort Reform By Implied Conflict Preemption, Martin A. Kotler Dec 2010

Tort Reform By Implied Conflict Preemption, Martin A. Kotler

Martin A. Kotler

Almost twenty years ago, the Supreme Court erred in equating state products law with other forms of state regulation of potentially dangerous products. From there, it was only a short step to declare that the common-law imposition of liability could conflict with, and thus be preempted by, federal regulatory policy.
At the time, state courts and legislatures were in the process of overturning thirty years of a strict liability experiment—an experiment that had been tried and ultimately found to be inconsistent with our fundamental understanding of the circumstances under which the assignment of responsibility for accidents was to be made. …