Law Commons^™

Digitizing Brandenburg: Common Law Drift Toward A Causal Theory Of Imminence, J. Remy Green

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court’s Brandenburg v. Ohio test provides an exception to the First Amendment’s broad guarantee of freedom of speech. Where speech is (1) directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action, and (2) is likely to incite or produce such action, the First Amendment withdraws its promise of protection. Thus, where the “imminence” of lawless action cannot be shown, free speech cannot be restricted. Since Brandenburg, Courts have applied a test for imminence that turns on proximity in space and in time — that is, the test evaluates how spatiotemporally imminent lawless activity is. In this Article, I argue …

Copyright Owners' Putative Interests In Privacy, Reputation, And Control: A Reply To Goold, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

My own view is that Goold overstates the explanatory role of tort law. But even were that not the case, the courts need to reach some kind of “settled” understanding on these various interests before a cause of action is created or definitively rejected, and that no such consensus on the three matters mentioned yet exists, whether they are viewed as forms of tort or otherwise. Goold’s work may nevertheless be an important step toward reaching closure on these and other open questions in copyright law.

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

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

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 Causation Standard In Federal Employment Law: Gross V. Fbl Financial Services, Inc., And The Unfulfilled Promise Of The Civil Rights Act Of 1991, Michael C. Harper

Faculty Scholarship

This article analyzes and recommends a Congressional response to the Supreme Court’s 2009 decision in Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc.. The article places the Gross decision’s choice of a causation standard for disparate treatment causes of action in historical context by comparing that choice with that made by Congress for Title VII in § 107 of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, and criticizes the Court’s activist refusal to follow its own Title VII precedent. Stressing the lower courts’ misinterpretation of § 107, both before and after the Court’s own interpretation of this section in 2003 in Desert Palace, …

A Framework For Reparations Claims, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

These remarks, prepared for the Boston College Third World Law Journal Reparations Symposium, compare the goals and viability of reparations claims as tort suits. I contrast two approaches observed in the claims: a "doing justice" model, which involves seeking compensation in important cases of uncorrected uncompensated injustice, and a "social welfare" model that seeks to change the distribution of wealth. Claims under the first category are far more consistent with tort doctrine and likely to meet their goals than social welfare-based claims.

Burden Of Proof: Judging Science And Protecting Public Health In (And Out Of) The Courtroom, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The breast implant cases alleging systemic disease would in all likelihood have been lost had recipients been properly warned of potential dangers by the manufacturer or their surgeons.

Discontinuities, Causation, And Grady's Uncertainty Theorem, Stephen G. Marks

Faculty Scholarship

In a series of articles, Mark Grady considers the problem of discontinuity under a tort negligence regime. The discontinuity can be described as follows. A potential injurer who adopts the optimal level of precaution is completely shielded from liability under the negligence system even though accidents occur. A very small decrease in the level of precaution below the optimal level suddenly exposes the potential injurer to liability for those accidents. This discontinuity makes the expected cost of under-investment in precaution greater than the expected cost of overinvestment. In a world where there is uncertainty about the optimal level of precaution …

The Use Of Risk Assessment Evidence To Prove Increased Risk And Alternative Causation In Toxic Tort Litigation, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

Due to the difficulties of proving causation in most toxic tort suits, plaintiffs and defendants in toxic tort litigation have begun to develop and use scientifically sophisticated risk assessments as evidence in proving or disproving causation. This use has led to two new trends in tort liability. First, there is the trend in which risk assessment is used by plaintiffs to buttress claims for future injury or increased risk. Second, there is the trend in which risk assessment is used by defendants to establish that other factors caused, in whole or in part, plaintiffs’ injuries.

This article evaluates these two …

Note On Causation And Limited Duration Of Intellectual Property; Also Patent Standards - 1990, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

Another causation problem is this: "But for" causation is only one type. It has its own problems. But there are other kinds of cause. In tort law these other kinds of cause are lumped together under the rubric "proximate cause", and the difficulties of "proximate cause" doctrine illustrate some of the difficulties.

Negligence, Causation And Information, Stephen G. Marks

Faculty Scholarship

This note suggests a model to unify, in a simple information-based framework, the notion of negligence and the various notions of causation. In effect, the model demonstrates that negligence, probabilistic cause and cause-in-fact represent an identical concept applied to different information sets. This note uses the unified framework to develop a simple algorithm for the practical application of the principles of causation in the law of negligence.