Torts Commons^™

The Constitutional Problem Of Nondebtor Releases In Bankruptcy, Adam J. Levitin

Fordham Law Review

In recent years, nondebtor releases have become a common feature of big-case Chapter 11 bankruptcy practice. Nondebtor releases involve the release of creditor claims against third-party nondebtors pursuant to a bankruptcy plan confirmation order. Some nondebtor releases are consensual, meaning that they are done with the assent of the releasing creditor, but some are not.

This Essay argues that all nonconsensual nondebtor releases in bankruptcy are unconstitutional. The constitutional infirmities of nondebtor releases are layered: all non debtor releases—consensual or nonconsensual—are outside the scope of Congress’s authority under an original understanding of the Bankruptcy Clause; all nonconsensual nondebtor releases are …

The New Mass Torts Bargain, Samir D. Parikh

Fordham Law Review

Mass torts create a unique scale of harm and liabilities. Corporate tortfeasors are desperate to settle claims but condition settlement on the resolution of substantially all claims at a known price—commonly referred to as a global settlement. Without this, corporate tortfeasors are willing to continue with protracted and fragmented litigation across jurisdictions. Global settlements can be elusive in these cases. Mass torts are oftentimes characterized by heterogeneous victim groups that include both current victims and future victims—individuals whose harm has not yet manifested and may not do so for years. Despite this incongruence, future-victim claims must be aggregated as part …

Replies To Commentators, John C.P. Goldberg, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Faculty Scholarship

With gratitude for our commentators’ thoughtful and generous engagement with Recognizing Wrongs, we offer in this reply a thumbnail summary of their comments and responses to some of their most important questions and criticisms. In the spirit of friendly amendment, Tom Dougherty and Johann Frick suggest that a more satisfactory version of our theory would cast tort actions as a means of enforcing wrongdoers’ moral duties of repair. We provide both legal and moral reasons for declining their invitation. Rebecca Stone draws a particular link between civil recourse in private law theory and the right of self-defense as recognized in …

Climate Change, Competition & Conflict Along The River Nile: The Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam & Shifting Customary International Water Law, Salma Shitia

Fordham Environmental Law Review

Decade-long negotiations between the Arab Republic of Egypt and the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia surround the decision to build the hydroelectric power plant along the River Nile. For much of Ethiopia, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam represents a beacon of prosperity. For countless Egyptians, the structure embodies a potential catastrophe. Grounded in threats of displacement for Egyptian agricultural communities, some have compared the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam crisis to disasters culminating in mass migration.

This battle for natural resource access has intensified as climate change exacerbates the region’s dire conditions. Specifically, exhaustible resource allocation amid climate change indicates that …

A Paper Tiger? Prosecutorial Regulators In China’S Civil Environmental Public Interest Litigations, Chunyan Ding, Huina Xiao

Fordham Environmental Law Review

In July 2015, China’s national legislature brought in prosecutor-led civil environmental public interest litigation (“EPIL”) for thirteen selected provincial areas of the country. After a two-year legal experiment, this prosecutor-led civil EPIL system was then established nationwide in July 2017. Yet, can it be said that prosecutorial regulators in China are in fact a paper tiger? Drawing upon content analysis of the 655 prosecutor-led civil EPILs and in-depth interviews with twelve frontline prosecutors and judges, this article examines the dynamics of regulatory practice and the motivation of the Chinese prosecutorial organs to engage in environmental regulation through litigation. Based upon …

The Yoga Analogy: Scaling-Up The U.S.’S Renewable Energy Sector Mindfully With New Technologies, Evolving Standards, Public Buy-In, Data Sharing, And Innovation Clusters, Kimberly E. Diamond

Fordham Environmental Law Review

This paper focuses on innovative renewable energy devices, exploring how scientifically-based industry standards that continuously evolve with engineering design technology, the public’s buy-in and feeling of connectedness with groundbreaking devices, and innovation clusters that accelerate device development through data sharing and public-private partnerships can all help advance the U.S.’s domestic renewable energy industry.

Part I analyzes challenges inherent to scaling- up novel renewable energy technologies while simultaneously developing the industry standards regulating them. Part II uses the Block Island Wind Farm, an offshore wind demonstration project, and Pavegen’s globally-deployed arrays of piezoelectric smart flooring tiles as examples illustrating the importance …

Environmental Racism: Using Environmental Planning To Lift People Out Of Poverty, And Re-Shape The Effects Of Climate Change & Pollution In Communities Of Color,, William C.C. Kemp-Neal

Fordham Environmental Law Review

In the mid-1900s the United States began to see a rise in concern for environmental awareness issues. In the early days the movement focused on things like clean air, water and pollution but by the 1970s-1990s many prominent environmental awareness groups began to form focused on the idea that in order to avert climate change the principal goal needed to be to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. In 1987 a report was released called Toxic Waste and Race, which outlined an intimate link between the placement of environmental hazardous waste sites in communities of color, and greater instances of polluted …

Beyond Equity: Shared Natural Resources And Human Rights, Criminal Law, And The Use Of Force, Eian Katz

Fordham Environmental Law Review

Transboundary resource disputes are often analyzed by reference to two nebulous and conflicting principles that have emerged in international environmental law: “equitable and reasonable utilization” and “no significant harm.” Frequently overlooked in this context is the potential value of other canons of international law—especially human rights law, criminal law, and the rules governing the use of force—in adding definition to the muddled contours of these foundational precepts. This Article therefore undertakes an assessment of sovereign rights and obligations regarding shared natural resources which arise from these other bodies of law. In doing so, it offers new lenses through which to …

Squaring The Cercla: Superfund And The Superfund Task Force, Manny Marcos

Fordham Environmental Law Review

The Superfund Task Force recently released its final report on the implementation of its recommendations for improving the Superfund program. The Task Force was given five goals for improving the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (“CERCLA’s”), implementation. These goals are to expedite cleanup and remediation, re-invigorate responsible party cleanup and reuse, encourage foreign investment, promote redevelopment and community revitalization, and engage with partners and stakeholders. While the Task Force’s recommendations have improved CERCLA’s implementation, many of CERCLA’s structural flaws remain intact. Specifically, CERCLA still has a severe shortage of funding, an unfair liability scheme, perverse incentives, …

Covid-19 Impacts: How A Global Pandemic Amid The Sunsets Of The Ptc And Itc Made The U.S. Wind And Solar Industries More Resilient, Kimberly E. Diamond

Fordham Environmental Law Review

A cataclysmic event is sometimes the necessary catalyst for companies within certain industries to re- examine, radically shift, and replace their standard practices with technologically-advanced alternatives. In the United States, the occurrence of the Coronavirus pandemic (“COVID-19”) during the sunsets of the Production Tax Credit (“PTC”) and the Investment Tax Credit (“ITC”) created a unique confluence of factors that produced a perfect storm tantamount to such a cataclysmic event for companies in the wind and solar industries, particularly developers. Over the years, the domestic utility-scale wind industry has come to rely heavily upon the PTC, while the domestic utility- scale …

Illegal Discharge: Exploring The History Of The Criminal Enforcement Of The U.S. Clean Water Act, Dr. Joshua Ozymy, Dr. Melisssa L. Jarrell

Fordham Environmental Law Review

The criminal prosecution of defendants that violate federal clean water laws has been ongoing for roughly four decades. Yet, we continue to have a poor understanding of how federal prosecutors use the U.S. Clean Water Act (“CWA”) to charge and prosecute criminals and the outcomes of those prosecutions. We use content analysis to analyze 2,588 federal criminal prosecution case summaries, 1983-2019, to gain a better historical understanding of how the CWA has been used as a prosecutorial tool, to bring out the major themes in the prosecutions, and quantify sentencing outcomes. Findings from the 828 CWA prosecutions undertaken during this …

Red Tide: A Blooming Concern For Florida Manatees, Shannon Price Esq.

Fordham Environmental Law Review

Although red tides are a common and natural occurrence around the coast of Florida, within the last few decades they have intensified and become much more deadly. Several identifiable human-caused factors exacerbate the size, concentration, and duration of the harmful algae bloom and disturb the environment’s natural balance. The Florida Gulf Coast provides all the algae’s necessary requirements for survival, the perfect storm to create a resilient super bloom that annihilates its host ecosystem.

This article explains the plight of Florida manatees who, like other marine animals and plants, are being injured or killed by this algae crisis. It also …

The Use Of Regular Militaries For Natural Disasters After A Major Event Where The Military Was Seen As A Failure - The Somalia Effect In The Age Of Black Lives Matters And Covid-19, Donald D.A. Schaefer

Fordham Environmental Law Review

This is written as a continuation of Dr. Schaefer’s recent article entitled, “The Use of the Regular Militaries for Natural Disaster Assistance: Climate Change and the Increasing Need for Changes to the Laws in the United States, China, Japan, the Philippines, and Other Countries.” 2 Perhaps few other areas have affected so many people than the Covid-19 pandemic. Coupled with this has been the struggle over the use of force by the military and police in the age of “black lives matters” and the movements that have been transpired as a result. With the increased global warming likely to continue …

"Eco" Your Own Way: An Argument For State-Specific Climate Change Legislation, Amanda Voeller

Fordham Environmental Law Review

The consequences of climate change seriously and immediately threaten the American way of life, but proposed federal legislation like the Green New Deal is overly broad, unrealistic, and inefficient. The most effective way for the United States to combat climate change is not with a one-size-fits-all plan like the Green New Deal, but with federal legislation that incentivizes states and cities to enact and enforce individualized, local climate legislation. Different states and cities have different climates, available energy sources, and transportation needs, so the federal government should use financial incentives to encourage states and cities to pass tailor-made bills and …

Tort Theory, Private Attorneys General, And State Action: From Mass Torts To Texas S.B. 8, John C.P. Goldberg, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Faculty Scholarship

Late twentieth-century tort theory was dominated by scholars who regarded tort law as primarily a means employed by government to deter anti-social conduct. On this model, tort plaintiffs are cast as private attorneys general whose lawsuits promote safety. Tort theorists today better appreciate that this approach obscures crucial respects in which tort law is private law–law that empowers persons who have been wronged to redress the wrongs done to them. But in practice there is a continued failure to perceive the ways in which the deterrence model has shaped and distorted views of tort law, as evidenced by the terms …

Regaining Control Over The Climate Change Narrative: How To Stop Right-Wing Populism From Eroding Rule Of Law In The Climate Struggle In India, Binit Agrawal

Fordham Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Innovative Regulatory And Financial Parameters For Advancing Carbon Capture And Storage Technologies, Zen Makuch, Slavina Georgieva & Behdeen Oraee-Mirzamani

Fordham Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Textiles As A Source Of Microfiber Pollution And Potential Solutions, Lea M. Elston

Fordham Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Lessons From Renewable Energy Diffusion For Carbon Dioxide Removal Development, Anthony E. Chavez

Fordham Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Public Nuisance Claims After Conagra, Steven Czak

Fordham Law Review

This Note examines the continuing harms of lead-based paint and attempts by cities and states to hold manufacturers and distributors liable for abatement under the public nuisance doctrine. Such suits have stretched traditional conceptions of public nuisance, particularly on the threshold issue of whether pervasive lead paint in residences infringes on a common right held by the public. This Note reviews the major lead paint public nuisance cases from across the country. The plaintiffs were unsuccessful in each case for a variety of reasons until ten California counties prevailed in People v. ConAgra in November 2017. While subsequently reduced by …

Milkovich, #Metoo, And “Liars”: Defamation Law And The Fact-Opinion Distinction, Pooja Bhaskar

Fordham Law Review

Since the start of the #MeToo movement, sexual assault survivors have increasingly turned defamation law against their alleged assaulters. In these #MeToo defamation cases, an alleged victim publicly claims that another person, usually someone of considerable wealth and fame, sexually assaulted them. The alleged assaulter then calls their accuser a liar, causing their accuser to sue their alleged assaulter for defamation. These cases have consistently raised an element of the defamation analysis that has long challenged courts: distinguishing between statements of actionable “fact” and nonactionable “opinion.” #MeToo defamation cases raise the question of whether an alleged assaulter’s claim that their …

It Is Emphatically The Province And Duty Of State Courts To Say What Tort Law Is, Sijin Choi

Fordham Law Review

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2011 decision in PLIVA, Inc. v. Mensing, consumers of generic prescription drugs suffering from unwarnedof side effects largely remain without an avenue of legal recourse due to their inability to sue their own manufacturers. But in the pursuit for legal redress, some generic plaintiffs have pursued a narrow window of liability by bringing failure-to-warn claims, sounding in negligence, against the manufacturer responsible for producing the brand-name equivalent of the generic drug. Such claims rest on the rationale that the sui generis federal regulatory scheme governing the prescription drug industry furnishes an inextricable nexus between …

Group Defamation, Power, And A New Test For Determining Plaintiff Eligibility, Jeffrey Greenwood

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

In the fall of 2014, Rolling Stone Magazine published an article describing the rape of a woman at a University of Virginia fraternity house. The story turned out to be false, and members of the fraternity sued for defamation. The suit raises an interesting question: under what circumstances may anonymous individual members of the fraternity recover? This Note describes the case, related common and constitutional law, as well as differences in group defamation doctrine across jurisdictions. After detailing problems with the existing paradigm, the Note proposes a new method for performing the analysis.

Leaders And Laggards: Tackling State Legislative Responses To The Youth Sports Concussion Epidemic, Chris Lau

Fordham Law Review

In 2009, state legislatures began to enact concussion safety laws to protect youth athletes suffering from traumatic brain injuries sustained during the course of play. By 2014, all fifty states and the District of Columbia had enacted some form of youth sports concussion legislation. Yet these statutes vary widely across states in terms of the protections offered to youth athletes. This Note provides an analysis of state legislation by classifying all fifty-one statutes among distinct tiers ranging from least to most protective.

Mass Torts And The Pursuit Of Ethical Finality, Lynn A. Baker

Fordham Law Review

Judges, lawyers, and academics largely agree that comprehensive finality is a central goal of mass tort litigation and settlements. More controversial is whether such finality is normatively preferable, inherently ethically problematic, or can be achieved through nonclass aggregate settlements without running afoul of the existing ethics rules. This Article joins this important debate.

Mass Torts And The Pursuit Of Ethical Finality, Lynn A. Baker

Fordham Law Review

Judges, lawyers, and academics largely agree that comprehensive finality is a central goal of mass tort litigation and settlements. More controversial is whether such finality is normatively preferable, inherently ethically problematic, or can be achieved through nonclass aggregate settlements without running afoul of the existing ethics rules. This Article joins this important debate.

Carpooling Liability?: Applying Tort Law Principles To The Joint Emergence Of Self-Driving Automobiles And Transportation Network Companies, Jacob D. Walpert

Fordham Law Review

Self-driving automobiles have emerged as the future of vehicular travel, but this innovation is not developing in isolation. Simultaneously, the popularity of transportation network companies functioning as ride-hailing and ride-sharing services have altered traditional conceptions of personal transportation. Technology companies, conventional automakers, and start-up businesses each play significant roles in fundamentally transforming transportation methods. These transformations raise numerous liability questions. Specifically, the emergence of self-driving vehicles and transportation network companies create uncertainty for the application of tort law’s negligence standard. This Note addresses technological innovations in vehicular transportation and their accompanying legislative and regulatory developments. Then, this Note discusses the …

Tort Vision For The New Millennium: Strengthening News Industry Standards As A Defense Tool In Law Suits Over Newsgathering Techniques Essay, Micahel W. Richards

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Deadly Dust: Occupational Health And Safety As A Driving Force In Workers’ Compensation Law And The Development Of Tort Doctrine And Practice, George Conk

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Tort In Search Of A Remedy: Prying Open The Courthouse Doors For Legal Malpractice Victims, Susan S. Fortney

Fordham Law Review

Using this broad connotation of justice, this Article questions whether many victims of legal malpractice are denied access to justice. In writing about the regulatory function of legal malpractice as a tort, Professor John Leubsdorf argues that legal malpractice relates to three important functions of the law of lawyering: “[D]elineating the duties of lawyers, creating appropriate incentives and disincentives for lawyers in their dealings with clients and others, and providing access to remedies for those injured by improper lawyer behavior.” Arguably, persons injured by lawyer misconduct are denied access to justice if our civil liability system does not provide them …