Insurance Law Commons^™

Blood On The Tracks, Thomas D. Russell

Seattle University Law Review

Streetcars were the greatest American tortfeasors of the early twentieth century, injuring approximately one in 331 urban Americans in 1907. This empirical study presents never-before-assembled data concerning litigation involving streetcar companies in California during the early twentieth century.

This Article demonstrates the methodological folly of relying upon appellate cases to describe the world of trial court litigation. Few cases went to trial. Plaintiffs lost about half their lawsuits. When plaintiffs did win, they won very little money. Regarding the bite taken out of the street railway company, the Superior Court was a flea.

Professor Gary Schwartz and Judge Richard Posner …

Mahler V. Szucs: An Impediment To Interinsurer Arbitration And Affordable Personal Injury Protection Coverage, John R. Nicholson

Seattle University Law Review

This Note will demonstrate that the Mahler court's decision will lead to inefficient results, because it has essentially compelled PIP insurers to accept representation by attorneys who have a conflict of interests, precluding such insurers from selecting the best means of recovering their PIP interests. As a result, the price of insurance premiums inevitably will escalate, while providing plaintiffs' attorneys with a windfall of increased fees for performing no additional work for their clients. The following discussion will show not only that the Mahler court holding is inefficient as a matter of public policy, but also that its analysis ignores …