Law Commons^™

“Danger Is My Business”: The Right To Manufacture Unsafe Products, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

While no one would dispute that safety is a desirable objective, it may not always be an absolute priority. Rather, in some cases, other societal interests such as personal autonomy, consumer choice, product cost, and performance may trump legitimate safety goals. This is reflected in some of the doctrines and defenses that have evolved to protect the producers of unsafe products against tort liability. Some of these doctrines, such as those determining liability for the producers of optional safety equipment, inherently dangerous products, products with obvious hazards, and prescription drugs and medical devices, are part of the law of products …

National Geographics: Toward A “Federalism Function” Of American Tort Law, Riaz Tejani

San Diego Law Review

This Article will situate the federalism function among existing scholarly frameworks and assess the “contoured” approach to federal and state power balancing across the existing subject matter of torts. Part II will assess conflicting characterizations of tort law as on one hand “private” and on the other “public” law. Part III will define and explain competing functions of tort law with an eye to whether federalism fits the common criteria of these coexisting objectives, goals, purposes, and methods for adjudication. In Part IV, the Article will explore historical and contemporary roles of federalism to understand why this process becomes so …

On Business Torts And The First Amendment, Richard J. Peltz-Steele

Faculty Publications

A gaping question in free speech law surrounds the application of the First Amendment defense in business torts. The pervasiveness of communication technologies, the flourishing of privacy law, and the mere passage of time have precipitated an escalation in tort cases in which communication, and what the defendant may allege is free speech, lies at the heart of the matter.

Finding Fault?: Exploring Legal Duties To Return Incidental Findings In Genomic Research, Elizabeth R. Pike, Karen H. Rothenberg, Benjamin E. Berkman

Faculty Scholarship

The use of whole genome sequencing in biomedical research is expected to produce dramatic advances in human health. The increasing use of this powerful, data-rich new technology in research, however, will inevitably give rise to incidental findings (IFs), findings with individual health or reproductive significance that are beyond the aims of the particular research, and the related questions of whether and to what extent researchers have an ethical obligation to return IFs. Many have concluded that researchers have an ethical obligation to return some findings in some circumstances, but have provided vague or context-dependent approaches to determining which IFs must …

Assessing The Insurance Role Of Tort Liability After Calabresi, W. Kip Viscusi, Joni Hersch

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Calabresi’s theory of tort liability (1961) as a risk distribution mechanism established insurance as an objective of tort liability. Calabresi’s risk-spreading concept of tort has provided the impetus for much of the subsequent development of tort liability doctrine, including risk-utility analysis and strict liability. Calabresi’s analysis remains a powerful basis for modern tort liability. However, high transactions costs, correlated risks, catastrophic losses, mass toxic torts, shifts in liability rules over time, noneconomic damages, and punitive damages affect the functioning of tort liability as an insurance mechanism. Despite some limitations of tort liability as insurance, tort compensation serves both a compensatory …

Assessing The Insurance Role Of Tort Liability After Calabresi, Joni Hersch, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Calabresi’s theory of tort liability (1961) as a risk distribution mechanism established insurance as an objective of tort liability. Calabresi’s risk-spreading concept of tort has provided the impetus for much of the subsequent development of tort liability doctrine, including risk-utility analysis and strict liability. Calabresi’s analysis remains a powerful basis for modern tort liability. However, high transactions costs, correlated risks, catastrophic losses, mass toxic torts, shifts in liability rules over time, noneconomic damages, and punitive damages affect the functioning of tort liability as an insurance mechanism. Despite some limitations of tort liability as insurance, tort compensation serves both a compensatory …

The New Orient Express: Current Trends And Regulations In Space Tourism And The Need For Commercial Hypersonic Point To Point Travel, Patrick Zurita

Global Business Law Review

This paper aims to answer the question of what the new privatized space regime will not only look like, but also if and how it will expand. In answering the question an examination of who will most be affected by space tourism and a subsequent space travel industry is required. Additionally, a cursory look at the history of airline regulation both domestically and abroad is needed to understand the future of private space flight. Next, an overview of past and current space and hypersonic technologies is required to attempt any projection of future advances. Finally, this paper sets out to …

Law And Neuroscience: Recommendations Submitted To The President's Bioethics Commission, Owen D. Jones, Richard J. Bonnie, B. J. Casey, Andre Davis, David L. Faigman, Morris Hoffman, Read Montague, Stephen J. Morse, Marcus E. Raichle, Jennifer A. Richeson, Elizabeth Scott, Laurence Steinberg, Kim Taylor-Thompson, Anthony Wagner, Gideon Yaffe

All Faculty Scholarship

President Obama charged the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues to identify a set of core ethical standards in the neuroscience domain, including the appropriate use of neuroscience in the criminal-justice system. The Commission, in turn, called for comments and recommendations. The MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience submitted a consensus statement, published here, containing 16 specific recommendations. These are organized within three main themes: 1) what steps should be taken to enhance the capacity of the criminal justice system to make sound decisions regarding the admissibility and weight of neuroscientific evidence?; 2) to what extent …

Law And Neuroscience: Recommendations Submitted To The President's Bioethics Commission, Owen D. Jones, Richard J. Bonnie, Bj Casey, Andre Davis, David L. Faigman, Morris B. Hoffman, Read Montague, Stephen J. Morse, Marcus E. Raichle, Jennifer A. Richeson, Elizabeth S. Scott, Laurence Steinberg, Kim Taylor-Thompson, Anthony Wagner, Gideon Yaffe

Faculty Scholarship

It has become increasingly clear that implications for criminal justice – both negative and positive – emerge from the rapid, important, and challenging developments in cognitive neuroscience, the study of how the brain thinks. Two examples will illustrate.

First, lawyers are ever more frequently bringing neuroscientific evidence into the courtroom, often in the forms of testimony about, and graphic images of, human brains. This trend has produced many new challenges for judges as they attempt to provide fair rulings on the admissibility of such technical evidence, consider its proper interpretation, and assess whether the probative value of such testimony may …

Workers' Compensation: Alternatives Are Limited, Irvin Stander

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Maya V. Centex: Potential Liabilities For Developers Related To Speculative Injuries, Alexander Cheung

Golden Gate University Law Review

The Ninth Circuit’s decision in Maya v. Centex addresses the impacts of the sub-prime mortgage crisis on fiscally responsible homeowners. Maya is the first appellate decision to potentially permit homeowners to assert claims against developers for injuries related to market-wide decline in property values. In Maya, the Ninth Circuit decided only the narrow question of whether plaintiff-homeowners have constitutional standing to pursue claims against defendant-developers for injuries that were allegedly caused by the defendants’ high-risk marketing and financing behaviors. Although the Ninth Circuit did not resolve the plaintiffs’ claims, it held that the plaintiffs have constitutional standing to assert …

Police Shootings - Administrative Law As A Method Of Control Over Police: Peterson V. City Of Long Beach, James Wright

Pepperdine Law Review

Professor Kenneth Davis has long advocated that police manuals should be viewed as interpretative administrative rules, which would guide police in their daily activities. He argued that police departments should not fear adopting interpretative rules because such rules would not be binding; therefore, the department would not be subject to tort liability if an officer violated such a rule. In Peterson v. City of Long Beach, a police officer violated the police manual when he shot and killed a non-violent fleeing suspect. The California Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Frank Newman, cited Professor Davis and his call for …

What's On First?: Organizing The Casebook And Molding The Mind, Donald G. Gifford, Joseph L. Kroart Iii, Brian Jones, Cheryl Cortemeglia

Faculty Scholarship

This study empirically tests the proposition that law students adopt different conceptions of the judge’s role in adjudication based on whether they first study intentional torts, negligence, or strict liability. The authors conducted an anonymous survey of more than 450 students enrolled in eight law schools at the beginning, mid-point, and end of the first semester of law school. The students were prompted to indicate to what extent they believed the judge’s role to be one of rule application and, conversely, to what extent it was one of considering social, economic, and ideological factors. The survey found that while all …

It's All Fun And Games Until Someone Loses An Eye: An Analysis Of University Liability For Actions Of Student Organizations, Jennifer L. Spaziano

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Comparative Negligence And Mitigation Of Damages: Two Sister-Doctrines In Search Of Reunion, Yehuda Adar Dr.

Yehuda Adar Dr.

This article addresses a neglected problem in Anglo-American tort law, namely, the apparent inconsistency between comparative negligence and mitigation of damages. Notwithstanding the now unquestionable victory of comparative negligence over the old all-or-nothing doctrine of contributory negligence, the doctrine of mitigation (or avoidable consequences) seems to retain its doctrinal integrity. Under comparative negligence, any loss that the victim could have avoided is apportioned between the victim and the tortfeasor. In contrast, under the doctrine of mitigation, a tort victim can never recover for any element of loss that could have been avoided. The apparent tension between these two loss allocation …

What's On First?: Organizing The Casebook And Molding The Mind, Donald G. Gifford, Joseph L. Kroart Iii, Brian Jones, Cheryl Cortemeglia

Donald G Gifford

This study empirically tests the proposition that law students adopt different conceptions of the judge’s role in adjudication based on whether they first study intentional torts, negligence, or strict liability. The authors conducted an anonymous survey of more than 450 students enrolled in eight law schools at the beginning, mid-point, and end of the first semester of law school. The students were prompted to indicate to what extent they believed the judge’s role to be one of rule application and, conversely, to what extent it was one of considering social, economic, and ideological factors. The survey found that while all …

"Fasten Your Seat Belt, Orville!": Exploring The Relationship Between State-Of-The-Art, Technological And Commercial Feasibility, And The Restatement'S Reasonable Alternative Design Requirement, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article begins by examining some of the case law involving the state-of-the-art concept and finds that it is principally concerned with technological feasibility. It also concludes that most cases do not treat state-of-the-art as conclusive on the design defect issue; rather, they merely consider it one of several factors that the fact finder may take into account when deciding whether a product's design is defective or not. Part II is concerned with technological development. This part examines two basic patterns of technological development and provides a number of historical examples for each. The first is a linear pattern, exemplified …

Does Product Liability Make Us Safer?, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Product liability law is intended to create an environment that fosters safer products. However, this law often has adverse consequences. Some of the problems stem from the inherent nature of product risk decisions and the function of tort liability, while others may derive from individuals’ cognitive limitations and inability to think properly about balancing risk and cost. This paper examines both types of problems and summarizes relevant academic literature.

Corporate Civil Liability Under The Alien Tort Statute: Exploring Its Possibility And Jurisdictional Limitations, Matthew E. Danforth

Cornell International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

From Undermining Child Protection Statutes To Creating Exceptions To Prohibitions Against Racial Discrimination In Public Accommodations: The Unsettling Consequences Of Mischaracterizing The Police Reporting Privilege, Peter Zablotsky

Peter Zablotsky

No abstract provided.

An Integrative Alternative For America's Privacy Torts, Robert M. Connallon

Golden Gate University Law Review

Rugg and Smith encapsulate a transition between two approaches to tort protection of privacy. Rugg reflects the unitary-tort theory, which recognizes a single tort and seeks only to determine if the plaintiff's interest in privacy has been breached by the defendant's behavior. Smith reflects the multiple-tort approach that recognizes four torts, encompassing four ways in which privacy is breached, that have in common only an interference with a loosely defined understanding of privacy. This understanding of the privacy tort was lifted from the Restatement (Second) of Torts (1977), which adopted a construct first proffered by Dean William Prosser in a …

A New Story Of David And Goliath: The Alien Tort Claims Act Gives Victims Of Environmental Injustice In The Developing World A Viable Claim Against Multinational Corporations, Pauline Abadie

Golden Gate University Law Review

Part I of this Comment provides a general background highlighting the tentacular role that multinational corporations play in our "globalized" world. Part I also stresses the link between extractive industries, environmental destruction and human rights violations, and uses three cases recently brought in U.S. federal courts against multinational corporations to illustrate such linkages. Part II provides general background information regarding the ATCA, its application and circumstances of its passage. Most important, Part II discusses the general opacity surrounding the birth of the ATCA and concludes that such nebulous origins contributed to the confusion practitioners meet today in its application. Part …

Constitutional Law, Maxine Salzman, Wayne B. Chew

Golden Gate University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Curious Case Of Directors' And Officers' Liability For Supervision And Management: Exploring The Intersection Of Corporate And Tort Law, Martin Petrin

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Life With A Rems: Challenges And Opportunities, Jennifer L. Bragg, Maya P. Florence

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

When Is Religious Speech Outrageous?: Snyder V. Phelps And The Limits Of Religious Advocacy, Jeffrey Shulman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Constitution affords great protection to religiously motivated speech. Religious liberty would mean little if it did not mean the right to profess and practice as well as to believe. But are there limits beyond which religious speech loses its constitutional shield? Would it violate the First Amendment to subject a religious entity to tort liability if its religious profession causes emotional distress? When is religious speech outrageous?

These are vexing questions, to say the least; but the United States Supreme Court will take them up next term—and it will do so in a factual context that has generated as …

Free Speech At What Cost?: Snyder V. Phelps And Speech-Based Tort Liability, Jeffrey Shulman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is always a hard case when fundamental interests collide, but the Fourth Circuit’s decision in Snyder v. Phelps, 580 F.3d 206 (4th Cir. 2009), cert. granted, 130 S. Ct. 1737 (2010), tilts doctrine too far in the direction of free speech, upsetting the Supreme Court’s careful weighing of interests that takes into account both the need for robust political debate and the need to protect private individuals from personal abuse. Where speech is directed at a private individual, especially one unwilling to hear but unable to escape the speaker’s message, the elements of the emotional distress claim more than …

International Issues: Which Country's Law Applies When Works Are Made Available Over The Internet, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

My topic is International Implications, a topic that would not exist but for the Internet. When access to archival materials was on a physical basis, patrons came to the archive and consulted the material on site; the material did not leave the archive, much less get sent overseas. Even digitized materials, if consulted on site, do not present the problems that arise if the archives puts this material on a website, which is accessible around the world, that ubiquity being the default condition ofthe Internet.

Let us consider some problems that might arise and which have international consequences. First of …

Annoyancetech Vigilante Torts And Policy, Robert F. Blomquist

Law Faculty Publications

The twenty-first century has ushered in demand by some Americans for annoyancetech devices—novel electronic gadgets that secretly fend off, punish, or comment upon perceived antisocial and annoying behaviors of others. Manufacturers, marketers, and users of certain annoyancetech devices, however, face potential tort liability for personal and property damages suffered by the targets of this “revenge by gadget.” Federal, state, and local policymakers should start the process of coming to pragmatic terms with the troubling rise in the popularity of annoyancetech devices. This is an area of social policy that cries out for thoughtful and creative legislative solutions.

Freedom To Defraud: Stoneridge, Primary Liability, And The Need To Properly Define Section 10(B), Travis S. Souza

Duke Law Journal

In Stoneridge Investment Partners, LLC v. Scientific-Atlanta, Inc., the Supreme Court determined that primary liability under section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act does not extend to third-party actors engaged in sham transactions, even when such transactions have the purpose and effect of deceiving investors. The Court reasoned that there is no liability when an actor's deceptive conduct is not communicated directly to investors. This Note argues that the Supreme Court misinterpreted section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 and that policy considerations weigh in favor of using securities fraud litigation to deter culpable actors. It argues both for the substantial participation …