Law Commons^™

Damage Limitations In Medical Malpractice Actions: Necessary Legislation Or Unconstitutional Deprivation, William R. Padget

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bankruptcy And Recovery Of Tort Damages, George Kuney

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Indulgence Of Reasonable Presumptions: Federal Court Contractual Civil Jury Trial Waivers, Joel Andersen

Michigan Law Review

Large institutions such as banks, franchisers, international companies, and lessors distrust juries' ability to properly resolve disputes and award reasonable damages. As a result, these and other actors have attempted to limit juries' potential influence on the contracts to which they are parties. They have done so through contractual jury trial waiver clauses in these agreements. The Seventh Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the jury trial right. Whether the right is determined to exist in an individual instance is a matter of federal common law, which merely preserves the jury trial right as it existed when the Amendment was adopted …

“Black People’S Money”: The Impact Of Law, Economics, And Culture In The Context Of Race On Damage Recoveries, Regina Austin

All Faculty Scholarship

“’Black People’s Money’: The Impact of Law, Economics, and Culture in the Context of Race on Damage Recoveries” is one of a series of articles by the author dealing with black economic marginalization; prior work considered such topics as shopping and selling as forms of deviance, street vending, restraints on leisure, and the importance of informality in loan transactions. This article deals with the linkage between the social significance of black people’s money and its material value. It analyzes the construction of “black money,” its association with cash, and the taboos and cultural practices that assure that black money will …

Zuni Indian Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act Of 2003, United States 108th Congress

Native American Water Rights Settlement Project

Federal Legislation: Zuni Indian Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act of 2003, PL 108-34, 117 Stat. 782 (June 23, 2003). Parties: Zuni Tribe, US, AZ. The Act ratifies the Settlement Agreement concerning Zuni Indian Tribe water rights in the Little CO River basin, AZ. It authorizes appropriations for acquisition of water rights and associated lands and, for fiscal years 2004 through 2006; and for actions necessary to restore, rehabilitate, and maintain the Zuni Heaven Reservation, including the Sacred Lake, wetlands, and riparian areas. The US shall take legal title of specified lands in the Gila and Salt River Base and Meridian …

Optimal Penalties In Contracts, Aaron S. Edlin, Alan Schwartz

Aaron Edlin

When Life Is An Injury: An Economic Approach To Wrongful Life Lawsuits, Thomas A. Burns

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Should Congress Repeal Securities Class Action Reform?, Adam C. Pritchard

Other Publications

The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 was designed to curtail class action lawsuits by the plaintiffs’ bar. In particular, the high-technology industry, accountants, and investment bankers thought that they had been unjustly victimized by class action lawsuits based on little more than declines in a company’s stock price. Prior to 1995, the plaintiffs’ bar had free rein to use the discovery process to troll for evidence to support its claims. Moreover, the high costs of litigation were a powerful weapon with which to coerce companies to settle claims. The plaintiffs’ bar and its allies in Congress have called …

Nonmaterial Misrepresentation: Damages, Rescission, And The Possibility Of Efficient Fraud, Emily Sherwin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Buried in the details of legal doctrine governing misrepresentation is a remedial anomaly that raises some interesting questions about how law should deal with moral wrongs such as fraud. We tend to think of deliberate deception--fraud--as a grave moral wrong. At least, we think of deception as gravely wrong when the deceiver's objective is not to avert harm or spare feelings, but to obtain someone's money or goods. Deception denies the autonomy of the person deceived and undermines the foundation of trust in human interaction. The law, however, does not penalize every instance of fraud. Moreover, the standards governing when …

Revisiting The United States Application Of Punitive Damages: Separating Myth From Reality, Patrick S. Ryan

ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law

The application of punitive damages in the United States is widely misunderstood by European jurists.

"On The Chastity Of Women All Property In The World Depends": Injury From Sexual Slander In The Nineteenth Century, Lisa R. Pruitt

Lisa R Pruitt

In this Article, Professor Pruitt discusses conceptions of the injury associated with defamation law, focusing in particular on sexual slander cases that were brought in the early nineteenth century, before statements that impugned a woman’s chastity were deemed slander per se. During this time, women had to prove so-called “special damages” in order to state a cause of action. Courts showed some flexibility in what they recognized as constituting “special damages,” even stretching to recognize pecuniary harm in damaged personal relationships. Nevertheless, courts refused to recognize injuries stemming from and related to emotional distress injuries, and they were often skeptical …

After Enron: Remembering Loyalty Discourse In Corporate Law, Lyman P.Q. Johnson

Scholarly Articles

The demise of monetary damages as a remedy for breach of the corporate director duty of due care means that only a breach of the duty of loyalty or good faith affords the possibility of holding corporate directors personally liable for wrongdoing. The author argues that the fiduciary duty of loyalty contains both a widely appreciated, but rather minimal, "non-betrayal" aspect and a less appreciated, but more affirmative, "devotion" dimension. The affirmative. thrust of loyalty, grounded in widely-shared cultural norms and finding expression in myriad literary and religious stories, offers a doctrinal avenue for addressing a potentially broader range of …

Correctional Services Corporation V. Malesko: Unmasking The Implied Damage Remedy, Matthew G. Mazefsky

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Taxing Settlement, Hanoch Dagan, James J. White

Articles

The following essay is based on the talk "Government, Citizens, and Injurious Industries: A Case Study of the Tobacco Litigation," delivered by Hanoch Dagan last May to the Detroit Chapter of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, and on the article "Governments, Citizens, and Injurious Industries," by Dagan and James J. White, '62, which appeared in 75.2 New York University Law Review 254-428 (May 2000). The authors hold conflicting view on the underlying issue of this topic: tobacco company product liability. Professor Dagan holds the position that tobacco companies are liable for harm done by their products; Professor …

Punitive Damages In Texas: Examining The Need For A Split-Recovery Statute., Meredith Matheson Thoms

St. Mary's Law Journal

As a result of the increasing number and amounts of punitive damage awards, a call for reform is much warranted. Reformers and legislators continue to seek out measures to effectively limit excessive punitive damage awards and deter unnecessary and frivolous litigation. But they must consider not only the effects of the statutes but also the purposes they will serve. Split-recovery statutes can become valuable reform tool which will continue to serve the goals of punishment and retribution attached to punitive damages as well as deterrence. Split-recovery statutes arguably enlarge government, but they also serve a valuable purpose in furthering the …

Bankruptcy And Recovery Of Tort Damages, George Kuney

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

What Did Punitive Damages Do? Why Misunderstanding The History Of Punitive Damages Matters Today, Anthony J. Sebok

Articles

In 2001 the Supreme Court, in Cooper Industries, Inc. v. Leatherman Tool Group, Inc. suggested that, although modern punitive damages punish, in earlier times they almost exclusively compensated for noneconomic damages that were ignored by a less progressive legal system. This article demonstrates that the historical foundation upon which the Supreme Court bases its argument is groundless. In the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries punitive damages served a number of functions, but none of them were to provide the noneconomic damages identified by the court. Instead, as the article shows, the sort of injuries for which punitive damages were once demanded …

Inmate Litigation, Margo Schlanger

Articles

In 1995, prison and jail inmates brought about 40,000 new lawsuits in federal court nearly a fifth of the federal civil docket. Court records evidence a success rate for inmate plaintiffs under fifteen percent. These statistics highlight two qualities long associated with the inmate docket: its volume and the low rate of plaintiffs' success. Then, in 1996, Congress enacted the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), which dramatically altered the litigation landscape, restricting inmates' access to federal court in a variety of ways. This Article examines inmate litigation before and after the PLRA. Looking first at the litigation process itself, it …