Litigation Commons^™

Closing The American Products Liability Frontier: The Rejection Of Liability Without Defect, James A. Henderson Jr., Aaron Twerski

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

For over one hundred years American courts expanded the rights of plaintiffs in products liability cases. First the courts eliminated the privity requirement, next the necessity of proving fault, and finally, the necessity of proving a production defect. The next logical step in this progression would be to eliminate the need to show any type of defect at all. In this Article, Professors Henderson and Twerski assert that this step cannot and will not be taken. They explore both the possibility of across-the-board liability without defect and the more limited idea of product-category liability without defect. They describe how a …

Judicial Reliance On Public Policy: An Empirical Analysis Of Products Liability Decisions, James A. Henderson Jr.

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Alternative Negligence Defense Rules On Litigation Behavior And Tort Claim Disposition, Marianne M. Jennings

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

Damages For Loss Of The Enjoyment Of Life, 24 J. Marshall L. Rev. 423 (1991), John Dwight Ingram

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Privity, Products Liability, And Ucc Warranties: A Retrospect Of And Prospects For Illinois Commercial Code 2-318, 25 J. Marshall L. Rev. 177 (1991), Steven Bonanno

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Getting To No: A Study Of Settlement Negotiations And The Selection Of Cases For Trial, Samuel R. Gross, Kent D. Syverud

Articles

A trial is a failure. Although we celebrate it as the centerpiece of our system of justice, we know that trial is not only an uncommon method of resolving disputes, but a disfavored one. With some notable exceptions, lawyers, judges, and commentators agree that pretrial settlement is almost always cheaper, faster, and better than trial. Much of our civil procedure is justified by the desire to promote settlement and avoid trial. More important, the nature of our civil process drives parties to settle so as to avoid the costs, delays, and uncertainties of trial, and, in many cases, to agree …

The Use Of Risk Assessment Evidence To Prove Increased Risk And Alternative Causation In Toxic Tort Litigation, Gary E. Marchant, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

Due to the difficulties of proving causation in most toxic tort suits, plaintiffs and defendants in toxic tort litigation have begun to develop and use scientifically sophisticated risk assessments as evidence in proving or disproving causation. This use has led to two new trends in tort liability. First, there is the trend in which risk assessment is used by plaintiffs to buttress claims for future injury or increased risk. Second, there is the trend in which risk assessment is used by defendants to establish that other factors caused, in whole or in part, plaintiffs’ injuries.

This article evaluates these two …

Doctrinal Collapse In Products Liability: The Empty Shell Of Failure To Warn, James A. Henderson Jr., Aaron Twerski

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Liability for a manufacturer's failure to warn of product-related risks is a well-established feature of modern products liability law. Yet many serious doctrinal and conceptual problems underlie these claims. Professors Henderson and Twerski explore these problems and argue that failure-to-warn jurisprudence is confused, perhaps irreparably, and that this confusion often results in the imposition of excessive liability on manufacturers. The authors begin by exposing basic errors resulting from courts' confusion over whether to apply a strict liability or a negligence standard of care in failure-to-warn cases. Having determined that negligence is the appropriate standard, they then examine more substantial and …

Automobile Accident Litigation In Kentucky, Office Of Continuing Legal Education At The University Of Kentucky College Of Law, Robert D. Monfort

Continuing Legal Education Materials

A practitioner's handbook that walks attorneys through the litigation processes arising from automobile accidents and related issues.

Attitudes Toward Corporate Responsibility: A Psycholegal Perspective, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

One of the most striking phenomena in the contemporary legal world is the shift toward holding businesses and corporations responsible for harm. Legal theorists and historians maintain that today business corporations are expected to provide compensation for injuries that in earlier times would have been attributed to individuals or to fate. Furthermore, criminal charges against businesses and business executives are becoming commonplace.

Despite a good deal of legal scholarship on the shift toward holding businesses culpable for harms, psychologists have conducted little systematic research on public views of corporate responsibility. How do people conceptualize the civil liability or criminal responsibility …

The Jury's Response To Business And Corporate Wrongdoing, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Some of the most vociferous criticisms of the jury relate to its performance in cases involving business and corporate wrongdoing. The jury's competence in such cases is assaulted on a variety of fronts. Critics question the jury's factfinding ability in cases with business and corporate parties, and doubt whether lay jurors can understand the often complex and esoteric evidence of business wrongdoing. Others claim that bias and prejudice, rather than evidence, determine jury decisions about businesses and corporations. The presumed biases cut both ways. The generally positive regard in which the public holds business is credited with creating leniency toward …

Market Share - A Tale Of Two Centuries, Aaron Twerski

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Responses To Corporate Versus Individual Wrongdoing, Valerie P. Hans, M. David Ermann

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

For many years, researchers assumed that the public was indifferent to corporate wrongdoing, but recent surveys have discovered evidence to the contrary. Taking insights from these data a step further, this study employed an experimental design to examine whether people responded differently to corporate versus individual wrongdoers. We varied the identity of the central actor in a scenario involving harm to workers. Half the respondents were informed that a corporation caused the harm; the remainder were told that an individual did so. Respondents applied a higher standard of responsibility to the corporate actor. For identical actions, the corporation was judged …

What Shapes Perceptions Of The Federal Court System?, Theodore Eisenberg, Stewart J. Schwab

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Two hundred years is a long time. It is too long after formation of a court system to ask such basic questions as (1) what cases occupy the system, and (2) whether even informed professionals have a reasonable picture of what goes on within the system. Nonetheless, continuing debate about the volume and makeup of litigation in general and of federal court litigation in particular requires legal scholars to address these questions. Professor Marc Galanter's work on the litigation explosion questions central assumptions about the nature and growth of the federal docket. Our prior work undermines widely held views about …

Continental Insurance Companies V. Northeastern Pharmaceutical & (And) Chemical Company: Cleanup Costs Are Not Damages Under A Standard Liability Policy, 22 J. Marshall L. Rev. 703 (1989), Michael J. Holt

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Legal Community And The Transformation Of Disputes: The Settlement Of Injunction Actions, James B. Atleson

Journal Articles

Lawyers in cases involving injunctions against picketing represent clients in situations of great immediacy. A significant number of injunction actions are settled with reductions in picketing despite a seemingly restrictive statute and a highly organized workforce. This study of legal culture examines the role of lawyers in striving to create predictability, especially in regard to judges and the police, and in transforming conflicts of value into disputes over interests that can be resolved without resort to formal adjudication.

The Role Of Federal Safety Regulations In Products Liability Actions, Teresa M. Schwartz

Vanderbilt Law Review

Product safety is the province of both the regulatory and the tort systems. Each system has come under attack in recent years on both the federal and state levels. Through its regulatory policies, appointments, and budget cuts, the Reagan Administration has weakened the federal regulatory system.' At the same time, the Administration has severely criticized the tort system. State legislatures have enacted a myriad of statutes that weaken the tort system by cutting back on the common-law rights of victims, and additional measures are pending in Congress and in state legislatures across the country.'

For the most part, proponents of …

Costello V. Capital Cities Communications, Inc.: Illinois' Innocent Construction Rule Prevails Over The Constitutional Privilege For Expression Of Opinion, 21 J. Marshall L. Rev. 427 (1988), Jerald B. Holisky

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Accidents Do Happen: Hazardous Technology And International Tort Litigation, Stephen C. Mccaffrey

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Tort Litigation And Social Change: Accidents And Trial Court Litigation In West Virginia, 1870-1940, Frank W. Munger

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

What Must Cause Injury In Products Liability?, Aaron Gershonowitz

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Apocalypse Now?, Richard L. Marcus

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Agent Orange on Trial: Mass Toxic Disasters in the Courts by Peter H. Schuck

Agreements Changing The Forum For Resolving Malpractice Claims, James A. Henderson Jr.

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Apportionment In Kentucky After Comparative Negligence, John M. Rogers

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Adoption of comparative negligence gives juries the task of allocating fault between a plaintiff and a defendant when both were negligent and both caused the plaintiff's injury. A logical corollary must be that juries are theoretically and practically able to make such an allocation. If so, it follows that juries are able to make such an allocation among multiple defendants, each of whom was found to be both negligent and a cause of the plaintiff's injury. The judicial adoption of comparative negligence in Kentucky therefore requires a reexamination of the rules applicable to multiple tortfeasors. Cases decided since the adoption …

Substantive Policies And Choice Of Law, Willis L. M. Reese

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Civil Practice: Comparative Negligence, Jay C. Carlisle

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Recent decisional law by the Court of Appeals has placed new limits on the applicability of article 14-A to some assumption of risk cases, to matters involving some labor law violations, and to violations of legal prohibitions. These limitations are important to the practitioner representing clients who seek to benefit from New York's comparative negligence statute.

Comparing Fault, David C. Sobelsohn

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Mandatory Mass Tort Class Actions: Litigating Catastrophes Without Creating Litigation Catastrophes, 19 J. Marshall L. Rev. 91 (1985), Matthew K. Phillips

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Illinois Law In Distress: The Zone Of Danger And Physical Injury Rules In Emotional Distress Litigation, 19 J. Marshall L. Rev. 17 (1985), Edward A. Mccarthy

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Social Host Liability: Opening A Pandora's Box, Marc E. Odier

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.