Torts Commons^™

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

A Duty Of Loyalty For Privacy Law, Neil M. Richards, Woodrow Hartzog

Scholarship@WashULaw

Data privacy law fails to stop companies from engaging in self-serving, opportunistic behavior at the expense of those who trust them with their data. This is a problem. Modern tech companies are so entrenched in our lives and have so much control over what we see and click that the self-dealing exploitation of people has become a major element of the internet’s business model.

Academics and policymakers have recently proposed a possible solution: require those entrusted with people’s data and online experiences to be loyal to those who trust them. But many have concerns about a duty of loyalty. What, …

Warranty, Product Liability And Transaction Structure: The Problem Of Amazon, Edward J. Janger, Aaron D. Twerski

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Amazon, and other internet sales platforms, have revolutionized the manner in which goods are purchased and sold. The obligations undertaken by Amazon in those sales are unclear, both as a matter of transparency, and as a matter of legal doctrine. Is Amazon a store? Is it a shipper? Is it a telephone? In various transactions Amazon can play some or all of these roles. Choosing the right metaphor has consequences. Amazon knows this and has done everything it can to deploy the metaphors selectively to its best legal and practical advantage, even when the chosen characterizations are inapt or even …

Cyber-Insecurity: The Reasonableness Standard In Internet Of Things Device Regulation And Why Technical Standards Are Better Equipped To Combat Cybercrime, Chynna Rose Foucek

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

While the Internet of Things (IoT) has created an interconnected world via phones, laptops, and even household devices, it is not infallible. As cyber-attacks increase in frequency, affecting companies of all sizes and industries, IoT device manufacturers have become particularly vulnerable, due in large part to the fact that many companies fail to implement adequate cybersecurity protocols. Mass data breaches occur often. However, these companies are not held accountable due to the use of the reasonableness standard in existing cybersecurity legislation, which is flexible and malleable. In 2019, the California Legislature enacted a cybersecurity law specific to IoT device manufacturers. …

Symposium: Consumer Welfare Market Structure And Political Power, Edward J. Janger

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Two competing visions dominate the fields of antitrust and consumer protection: neo-liberal and progressive. The neo-classical approach is associated with Robert Bork and the Law and Economics Movement. The progressive strand is older, identified with Brandeis and early 20th Century social reform. As a matter of chronology the Brandeisian view dominated into the 1970s, but from 1980, until recently, the Borkian law and economics approach has been in ascendancy in Congress, the academy, and in the courts. Technological change and events in the broader economy have caused the politics and the academic focus to shift. The financial crisis of 2008-09 …

Enough Is As Good As A Feast, Noah C. Chauvin

Seattle University Law Review

Ipse Dixit, the podcast on legal scholarship, provides a valuable service to the legal community and particularly to the legal academy. The podcast’s hosts skillfully interview guests about their legal and law-related scholarship, helping those guests communicate their ideas clearly and concisely. In this review essay, I argue that Ipse Dixit has made a major contribution to legal scholarship by demonstrating in its interview episodes that law review articles are neither the only nor the best way of communicating scholarly ideas. This contribution should be considered “scholarship,” because one of the primary goals of scholarship is to communicate new ideas.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

The Heavy Hand Of Amazon: A Seller Not A Neutral Platform, Edward J. Janger, Aaron D. Twerski

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Since the adoption of Section 402A of the Second Restatement of Torts, every party in a product’s distribution chain has been potentially liable for injuries caused by product defects. Consumers who buy from reputable sellers are almost always guaranteed to have a solvent defendant if injured by a product defect. Amazon, though responsible for a vast number of retail sales, has sought to avoid liability by claiming that it is not a seller but a neutral platform that merely facilitates third-party sales to consumers. With two significant exceptions, most courts have sided with Amazon and concluded that Amazon is not …

Who Sells? Testing Amazon.Com For Product Defect Liability In Pennsylvania And Beyond, Aaron Doyer

Journal of Law and Policy

Pennsylvania, like other states, has struggled over the past few decades to apply the policy principles of product defect law—a tort characterized by strict liability. Because strict liability bypasses the traditional requirement in tort that a plaintiff prove the defendant’s negligence, and instead requires only a showing that the plaintiff was injured by a product sold in a defective condition, these inquiries raise a deceptively simple question: who sells? Recently, in a landmark case in Pennsylvania, the Third Circuit made waves by declaring Amazon.com, an enormous online marketplace, the legal “seller” of a product shipped and sold by a vendor …

An Essay On The Quieting Of Products Liability Law, Aaron D. Twerskii

Cornell Law Review

For several decades, courts and commentators have disagreed as to whether the standard for liability in product design defect cases should be based on risk-utility tradeoffs or disappointed consumer expectations. Although a strong majority opt for risk-utility a significant minority of courts adopt the consumer expectations test. This Essay contends that as a practical matter in jurisdictions that allow for recovery in design defect cases on a consumer expectations theory, plaintiffs introduce a reasonable alternative design as the predicate for recovery. In fifteen of the seventeen states that allow recovery based on consumer expectations the author could not find a …

The Heavy Hand Of Amazon: A Seller Not A Neutral Platform, Aaron D. Twerski, Edward J. Janger

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Borrowing American Ideas To Improve Chinese Tort Law, Yongxia Wang

St. Mary's Law Journal

As China develops its modern jurisprudence it faces a choice between emulating the legal frameworks of civil law countries or common law countries. Thus far, the civil law path has allowed for a rapid expansion of Chinese tort law, but jurists have found difficulty in applying such generalized statutory schemes with the absence of supporting judicial interpretation. Cognizant of the differences between the public policy of common law countries and China, Vincent Johnson’s Mastering Torts (Měiguó Qīnquán Fǎ) provides this guidance through the lens of American tort law. The hornbook takes care to simplify the role of judicial …

(Almost) No Bad Drugs: Near-Total Products Liability Immunity For Pharmaceuticals Explained, Anita Bernstein

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Article explores four beliefs about supposed pharma-benevolence that appear to be shared by more than the industry, reaching the level almost of conventional wisdom. These figurative pillars help support one-sided results in court. However, each of the pillars on examination turns out at least a bit shaky. This Article puts them forward for review to start a necessary discussion.

The locus of this Article is products liability, where a court concludes that a manufactured object is defective or could be called defective by a factfinder following a trial. Drug manufacturers enjoy near-immunity from this consequence. Modern products liability identifies …

In Memory Of Professor James E. Bond, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

Janet Ainsworth, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law: In Memory of Professor James E. Bond.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

A Recent Renaissance In Privacy Law, Margot Kaminski

Publications

Considering the recent increased attention to privacy law issues amid the typically slow pace of legal change.

Increasing Lapses In Data Security: The Need For A Common Answer To What Constitutes Standing In A Data Breach Context, Aaron Benjamin Edelman

Journal of Law and Policy

As the number of data breaches continues to rise in the United States, so does the amount of data breach litigation. Many potential plaintiffs who suffered as victims of data breaches, however, find themselves in limbo regarding the issue of standing before a court because of a significant split on standing determinations amongst the federal circuit courts. Thus, while victims of data breaches oftentimes have their personal information fall into the hands of nefarious characters who intend to use the information to a victim’s detriment, that may not be enough to provide victims a right to sue in federal court …

The Internet Of Bodies, Andrea M. Matwyshyn

William & Mary Law Review

This Article introduces the ongoing progression of the Internet of Things (IoT) into the Internet of Bodies (IoB)—a network of human bodies whose integrity and functionality rely at least in part on the Internet and related technologies, such as artificial intelligence. IoB devices will evidence the same categories of legacy security flaws that have plagued IoT devices. However, unlike most IoT, IoB technologies will directly, physically harm human bodies—a set of harms courts, legislators, and regulators will deem worthy of legal redress. As such, IoB will herald the arrival of (some forms of) corporate software liability and a new legal …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Suing Guns Out Of Existence?, Scott R. Thomas, Mystica M. Alexander

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

In an effort to address gun violence, activists and victims’ families have filed lawsuits against the firearms industry seeking damage awards for violence committed by third party unrelated actors. Although Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) in 2005 intending to foreclose such lawsuits, since the time of the law’s passage, plaintiffs have brought claims against the firearms industry seeking refuge in an exception embedded in the statute. In a March, 2019 decision, Soto v. Bushmaster Firearms International, LLC, the Connecticut Supreme Court found that the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act fell within an exception …

Time For A Fresh Look At Strict Liability For Pharmaceuticals, Mary J. Davis

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Part I provides a brief and basic explanation of pharmaceutical liability treatment. Part II explains the impact of federal preemption doctrine, which has dramatically limited the operation of tort law in pharmaceutical liability cases. Part III explains the parallel trends in the marketing and use of pharmaceuticals that increase the incidence of adverse drug events, affect prescribing practices, and fail to enhance informed practitioner and consumer choice in use of pharmaceuticals. Part IV provides support for the application of strict liability given the convergence of these trends. This Part also provides a theoretical justification for strict liability in tort for …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Misuse Of Product Misuse: Victim Blaming At Its Worst, Robert A. Adler, Andrew F. Popper

William & Mary Business Law Review

This Paper addresses the legal consequences that surface when a consumer uses a product in a manner not specifically intended by that product’s designer or manufacturer. If a product is used in a reasonably foreseeable manner, the fact that the use is at odds with a manufacturer’s intention should not be a basis to deny tort liability or limit the regulatory options of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. If a product proves to be unsafe, defective, dangerous, or otherwise hazardous to users and consumers, use patterns should not be the primary determinant in assessing regulatory and common law sanctions or …

A Flood-Not A Ripple-Of Harm: Proximate Cause Under The Fair Housing Act, Justin P. Steil, Daniel Traficonte

Cardozo Law Review

Over the past decade, several city governments across the country have filed suits against banks pursuant to the Fair Housing Act seeking redress for municipal damages caused by the banks' discriminatory lending practices. Following the ruling in Bank of America Corp. v. City of Miami, lower courts are now confronting the question of where to "draw the line" of proximate causation under the Fair Housing Act, and specifically whether the harms experienced by cities as a result of banks' discriminatory lending meet the requirements of proximate causation. In suggesting a direction for lower courts, the Court in City of …

Data-Informed Duties In Ai Development, Frank A. Pasquale

Faculty Scholarship

Law should help direct—and not merely constrain—the development of artificial intelligence (AI). One path to influence is the development of standards of care both supplemented and informed by rigorous regulatory guidance. Such standards are particularly important given the potential for inaccurate and inappropriate data to contaminate machine learning. Firms relying on faulty data can be required to compensate those harmed by that data use—and should be subject to punitive damages when such use is repeated or willful. Regulatory standards for data collection, analysis, use, and stewardship can inform and complement generalist judges. Such regulation will not only provide guidance to …

Bad Foundation: Washington's Lack Of Homeowner Rights, Brendan Williams

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Is It Reasonable To Block Unreasonable Advertisements? An Examination Of The Legality Of Ad-Blockers, Andrew Steele

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Internet Of Torts: Expanding Civil Liability Standards To Address Corporate Remote Interference, Rebecca Crootof

Law Faculty Publications

Thanks to the proliferation of internet-connected devices that constitute the “Internet of Things” (“IoT”), companies can now remotely and automatically alter or deactivate household items. In addition to empowering industry at the expense of individuals, this remote interference can cause property damage and bodily injury when an otherwise operational car, alarm system, or implanted medical device abruptly ceases to function.

Even as the potential for harm escalates, contract and tort law work in tandem to shield IoT companies from liability. Exculpatory clauses limit civil remedies, IoT devices’ bundled object/service nature thwarts implied warranty claims, and contractual notice of remote interference …

Nudges And Norms In Multidistrict Litigation: A Response To Engstrom, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Scholarly Works

On paper, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure apply equally to billion-dollar opioid allegations and small-stakes claims for $75,000.01. In practice, however, judges and attorneys in high-stakes multidistrict proceedings like those over opioids have invented a smattering of procedures that you’ll never find indexed in the Federal Rules: plaintiff fact sheets, short form complaints, science days, bellwether trials, census orders, inactive dockets, and Lone Pine orders to name but a few. In a world where settlement is the prevailing currency, norms take root. But as norms blossom, the stabilizing features of the federal rules—balance, predictability, and structural protections—can wither. As …