Law Commons^™

Foreword, Jennifer Taub

Faculty Scholarship

This Foreword highlights the central points of the Articles in Volume 43, Issue 1 of Western New England Law Review. The Article topics include emotional support animals, distribution rights for small beer brewers, fairness in accident insurance coverage, alternative legal education materials, and custody challenges for parents with abusive partners. Each share the identification of a perceived problem with the legal status quo and presents proposed solutions.

Interim Payments And Economic Damages To Compensate Private-Party Victims Of Hazardous Releases, Julie E. Steiner

Faculty Scholarship

There is a gap in tort recovery for many hazardous release victims. Hazardous spill victims receive different damage compensation based solely upon the type of hazardous substance released, with oil spill victims benefitting from a number of statutory damage recovery mechanisms that victims of other type of hazardous substance releases do not receive. Specifically, those injured by oil spills receive interim payments and recover for their economic loss. Yet, many victims injured by non-oil hazardous spills will incur economic harm but will not receive compensation because of a prohibition on recovery for economic loss absent accompanying physical injury or private …

When The Bell Can't Be Unrung: Document Leaks And Protective Orders In Mass Tort Litigation, William G. Childs

Faculty Scholarship

This Article focuses on the proper balance for the tort system to strike between its role as a means for resolving disputes and its potential role as a means for obtaining information about the conduct of the parties, especially as that conduct affects public health.

The Author states that most protective orders in mass torts have been appropriate, and most documents presently designated as confidential have been properly designated, at least under the policies that have been established to date. The Author starts with the notion that protective orders have value and that there are reasons to try to prevent …

Book Review: Tom Baker's The Medical Malpractice Myth, Barbara A. Noah

Faculty Scholarship

The Author reviews THE MEDICAL MALPRACTICE MYTH by Tom Baker, published by University of Chicago Press, 2005. Baker’s book confronts the idea that medical malpractice litigation is exploding and underserving plaintiffs and that their attorneys receive unjustified rewards while physicians struggle under the burden of high costs. The book strives to debunk the various aspects of this myth and offers directions for reform. Throughout the book, Baker very effectively connects the legal arguments and the insurance and litigation data to his broader points about the politics of tort reform. Baker’s style is concise, lively, and very readable. He effectively weaves …

When Criminal And Tort Law Incentives Run Into Tight Budgets And Regulatory Discretion, William G. Childs

Faculty Scholarship

Eight-year-old Greyson Yoe was electrocuted while waiting to get on the "Scooters" bumper car ride at the Lake County Fair in northeastern Ohio. The failure to ground the ride structure and damage to a light fixture on the ride caused his death. The day before the electrocution, two inspectors from the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) inspected the ride and passed it as "safe to operate." That inspection was superficial and grossly inadequate, and the completed inspection form had serious misrepresentations. Indeed, the inspectors later admitted that they never reviewed the key electrical items that they checked off on the …

The Managed Care Dilemma: Can Theories Of Tort Liability Adapt To The Realities Of Cost Containment?, Barbara A. Noah

Faculty Scholarship

Over the years, the United States health care system has undergone a transformation from a market comprised mainly of self employed physicians· in solo or small group practices to one in which far fewer physicians engage in this type of independent practice. More than three quarters of the physicians in this country now practice medicine within some form of managed care organization ("MCO") or see some managed care patients. The public increasingly perceives the care provided through MCOs as inferior to traditional feefor-service care. Responding to constituent pressures, legislatures in more than twenty states recently have considered bills regulating managed …