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The Issue Is Being Intersex: The Current Standard Of Care Is A Result Of Ignorance, And It Is Amazing What A Little Analysis Can Conclude., Marla J. Ferguson Jun 2013

The Issue Is Being Intersex: The Current Standard Of Care Is A Result Of Ignorance, And It Is Amazing What A Little Analysis Can Conclude., Marla J. Ferguson

marla j ferguson

The Constitution was written to protect and empower all citizens of the United States, including those who are born with Disorders of Sex Development. The medical community, as a whole, is not equipped with the knowledge required to adequately diagnose or treat intersex babies. Intersex simply means that the baby is born with both male and female genitalia. The current method that doctors follow is to choose a sex to assign the baby, and preform irreversible surgery on them without informed consent. Ultimately the intersex babies are mutilated and robbed of many of their fundamental rights; most notably, the right …


Rescuing Access To Patented Essential Medicines: Pharmaceutical Companies As Tortfeasors Under The Prevented Rescue Tort Theory, Richard Cameron Gower Apr 2013

Rescuing Access To Patented Essential Medicines: Pharmaceutical Companies As Tortfeasors Under The Prevented Rescue Tort Theory, Richard Cameron Gower

Richard Cameron Gower

Despite some difficulties, state tort law can be argued to create a unique exception to patent law. Specifically, the prevented rescue doctrine suggests that charities and others can circumvent patents on certain critical medications when such actions are necessary to save individuals from death or serious harm. Although this Article finds that the prevented rescue tort doctrines is preempted by federal patent law, all hope is not lost. A federal substantive due process claim may be brought that uses the common law to demonstrate a fundamental right that has long been protected by our Nation’s legal traditions. Moreover, this Article …


Doomed Steamers And Merged Fires: The Problem Of Preempted Innocent Threats In Torts, Anthony M. Dillof Feb 2013

Doomed Steamers And Merged Fires: The Problem Of Preempted Innocent Threats In Torts, Anthony M. Dillof

Anthony M. Dillof

This article addresses a classic question of tort theory: When a court assesses damages in a negligence action, it is relevant that the defendant’s negligence prevented the plaintiff from suffering a harm? For example, imagine that defendant Taxi Driver negligently crashes his taxi thereby injuring plaintiff Passenger. Is it relevant that because of the accident, Passenger did not reach the ocean liner he had been planning to sail on and, as a result, his life was saved because, as it turns out, the ocean liner sank, killing everyone aboard? Though this question has been recognized and addressed for almost a …


The Risky Interplay Of Tort And Criminal Law: Punitive Damages, Daniel M. Braun Jan 2013

The Risky Interplay Of Tort And Criminal Law: Punitive Damages, Daniel M. Braun

Daniel M Braun

The rise of modern mass tort litigation in the U.S. has transformed punitive damages into something of a “hot button” issue. Since the size of punitive damage awards grew so dramatically in the past half century, this private law remedy has begun to involve issues of constitutional rights that traditionally pertained to criminal proceedings. This has created a risky interplay between tort and criminal law, and courts have thus been trying to find ways to properly manage punitive damage awards. The once rapidly expanding universe of punitive damages is therefore beginning to contract. There remain, however, very serious difficulties. Despite …


Defenseless Self-Defense: An Essay On Goldberg And Zipursky's Civil Recourse Defended, Alan Calnan Jan 2013

Defenseless Self-Defense: An Essay On Goldberg And Zipursky's Civil Recourse Defended, Alan Calnan

Alan Calnan

In a recent symposium published by the Indiana Law Journal, Professors John C.P. Goldberg and Benjamin C. Zipursky offer a spirited defense of their theory of civil recourse, which sees the tort system exclusively as a means of empowering victims of wrongs. This essay assails that defense, finding it curiously defenseless in three related respects. First, civil recourse’s key tenets are particularly vulnerable to criticism because they are quietly reductive, inscrutably vague, and highly unstable. Second, even in its most coherent form, civil recourse theory literally lacks any meaningful explanation of the defensive rights at play within the tort system. …