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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Legacy Of The 9/11 Fund And The Minnesota I-35w Bridge-Collapse Fund: Creating A Template For Compensating Victims Of Future Mass-Tort Catastrophes, Michael K. Steenson
The Legacy Of The 9/11 Fund And The Minnesota I-35w Bridge-Collapse Fund: Creating A Template For Compensating Victims Of Future Mass-Tort Catastrophes, Michael K. Steenson
Faculty Scholarship
The purpose of this article is to analyze and compare the 9/11 Fund and the Minnesota bridge-collapse compensation scheme for purposes of illustrating the necessary components of any future compensation schemes legislatures consider adopting in cases involving other catastrophes. This article first sets out the primary issues that must be addressed when considering a compensation scheme. It then examines the choices made in the 9/11 Fund and Minnesota’s bridge-collapse compensation scheme. A brief comparison of the two compensation schemes follows to provide the framework for considering the components of future compensation schemes.
Juries And Medical Malpractice Claims: Empirical Facts Versus Myths, Neil Vidmar
Juries And Medical Malpractice Claims: Empirical Facts Versus Myths, Neil Vidmar
Faculty Scholarship
Juries in medical malpractice trials are viewed as incompetent, anti-doctor, irresponsible in awarding damages to patients, and casting a threatening shadow over the settlement process. Several decades of systematic empirical research yields little support for these claims. This article summarizes those findings. Doctors win about three cases of four that go to trial. Juries are skeptical about inflated claims. Jury verdicts on negligence are roughly similar to assessments made by medical experts and judges. Damage awards tend to correlate positively with the severity of injury. There are defensible reasons for large damage awards. Moreover, the largest awards are typically settled …
Responsibility And The Negligence Standard, Joseph Raz
Responsibility And The Negligence Standard, Joseph Raz
Faculty Scholarship
The paper has dual aim: to analyse the structure of negligence, and to use it to offer an explanation of responsibility (for actions, omissions, consequences) in terms of the relations which must exist between the action (omission, etc.) and the agents powers of rational agency if the agent is responsible for the action. The discussion involves reflections on the relations between the law and the morality of negligence, the difference between negligence and strict liability, the role of excuses and the grounds of duties to pay damages.
Dispute Systems Design: The United Nations Compensation Commission, Francis Mcgovern
Dispute Systems Design: The United Nations Compensation Commission, Francis Mcgovern
Faculty Scholarship
The Security Council of the United Nations established the United Nations Compensation Commission (“UNCC”) with its Resolution 687 on April 3, 1991.1 It was the first compensation system established under the authority of Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter and was designed to process and pay claims arising from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The purpose of this paper is to examine the design of the UNCC from a variety of perspectives: its historical setting, the alternative design approaches that have been taken in other compensation contexts, the details of its design, and its role in the design …