Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Torts Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Fordham Law School

Discipline
Keyword
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type

Articles 61 - 90 of 112

Full-Text Articles in Torts

A Tort In Search Of A Remedy: Prying Open The Courthouse Doors For Legal Malpractice Victims, Susan S. Fortney Jan 2017

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 …


See No Fiduciary, Hear No Fiduciary: A Lawyer’S Knowledge Within Aiding And Abetting Fiduciary Breach Claims, Brinkley Rowe Dec 2016

See No Fiduciary, Hear No Fiduciary: A Lawyer’S Knowledge Within Aiding And Abetting Fiduciary Breach Claims, Brinkley Rowe

Fordham Law Review

Fiduciary liability for attorney conduct generally extends only to direct clients of legal services. Over the last few decades, however, the lawyer’s role has expanded. Following this trend, fiduciary liability also has expanded to allow third-party claims in certain limited circumstances. One example is the attorney aiding and abetting a client’s fiduciary breach claim. One of the key requirements for liability under this claim is the attorney’s knowledge of his client’s fiduciary relationship with the third party alleging the breach. Within those jurisdictions that have accepted the claim, there are two approaches to the knowledge element. The first is the …


Defining “Accidents” In The Air: Why Tort Law Principles Are Essential To Interpret The Montreal Convention’S “Accident” Requirement, Alexa West Dec 2016

Defining “Accidents” In The Air: Why Tort Law Principles Are Essential To Interpret The Montreal Convention’S “Accident” Requirement, Alexa West

Fordham Law Review

This Note examines the history of, and the reasons for, the Montreal Convention, which in part forces airlines to indemnify passengers for injuries resulting from “accidents”—a term undefined in the treaty. The Montreal Convention and the subsequent case law interpreting it demonstrate how, to qualify as an “accident,” the injury-producing incident must be causally connected to the plane’s operation. Importantly, the causal connection’s adequacy should be evaluated according to American tort jurisprudence even though the accident requirement itself is an exception to general tort law. This Note focuses on a particular type of injury-producing event, a copassenger tort, because of …


The Strict Liability In Fault And The Fault In Strict Liability, John C.P. Goldberg, Benjamin C. Zipursky Nov 2016

The Strict Liability In Fault And The Fault In Strict Liability, John C.P. Goldberg, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Fordham Law Review

Tort scholars have long been obsessed with the dichotomy between strict liability and liability based on fault or wrongdoing. We argue that this is a false dichotomy. Torts such as battery, libel, negligence, and nuisance are wrongs, yet all are “strictly” defined in the sense of setting objective and thus quite demanding standards of conduct. We explain this basic insight under the heading of “the strict liability in fault.” We then turn to the special case of liability for abnormally dangerous activities, which at times really does involve liability without wrongdoing. Through an examination of this odd corner of tort …


Reasonable Supervision In The City: Enhancing The Safety Of Students With Disabilities In Urban (And Other) Schools, Lynn M. Daggett Mar 2016

Reasonable Supervision In The City: Enhancing The Safety Of Students With Disabilities In Urban (And Other) Schools, Lynn M. Daggett

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.


"A Distinction Without A Difference"?: Bartlett Going Forward, Steven A. Schwartz Oct 2015

"A Distinction Without A Difference"?: Bartlett Going Forward, Steven A. Schwartz

Fordham Law Review

    This Note addresses the question of whether federal law preempts state design defect claims against generic drug manufacturers regardless of which test state law uses to determine whether a drug is defective. This issue, arising out of the U.S. Supreme Court's interpretation of preemption jurisprudence and fundamental tort law as stated in Mutual Pharmaceutical Co. v. Bartlett, is significant because it plays a large role in determining to what extent generic drug manufacturers are immune to civil liability arising out of injuries caused by their generic drugs. In an age of rising medical costs and jury awards, both plaintiff …


No Harm, No Foul? "Attempted" Invasion Of Privacy And The Tort Of Intrusion Upon Seclusion, Eli A. Meltz May 2015

No Harm, No Foul? "Attempted" Invasion Of Privacy And The Tort Of Intrusion Upon Seclusion, Eli A. Meltz

Fordham Law Review

    The tort of intrusion upon seclusion protects individuals from unwanted invasions into their personal space and personal affairs. While courts differ as to the precise definition and scope of this tort, at the most basic level, a claim for intrusion upon seclusion alleges that the defendant has unreasonably interfered with the plaintiff’s legitimate interest in maintaining some degree of privacy in his or her personal affairs. This Note analyzes an interesting issue that has emerged concerning the application of this tort: Should a defendant be held liable when he or she has attempted to observe the plaintiff in a private …


The Future Of Emotional Harm, Betsy J. Grey Apr 2015

The Future Of Emotional Harm, Betsy J. Grey

Fordham Law Review

    Why should tort law treat claims for emotional harm as a second-class citizen? Judicial skepticism about these claims is long entrenched, justified by an amalgam of perceived problems ranging from proof difficulties for causation and the need to constrain fraudulent claims, to the ubiquity of the injury, and a concern about open-ended liability. To address this jumble of justifications, the law has developed a series of duty limitations to curb the claims and preclude them from reaching the jury for individualized analysis. The limited duty approach to emotional harm is maintained by the latest iteration of the Restatement (Third) of …


Should Neither Wind Nor Rain Nor Hurricane Keep Victims From Recovery? Examining The Tort And Insurance Systems’ Ability To Compensate Hurricane Victims, Kathleen A. Zink Dec 2014

Should Neither Wind Nor Rain Nor Hurricane Keep Victims From Recovery? Examining The Tort And Insurance Systems’ Ability To Compensate Hurricane Victims, Kathleen A. Zink

Fordham Law Review

Large-scale natural disasters, such as hurricanes, wreak tremendous havoc, causing billions of dollars in damages.  Those who suffer serious damage may turn to their insurance providers or the tort system for compensation.  But, both the tort and insurance systems present serious limitations to a hurricane victim’s recovery.  This Note analyzes the goals and criticisms of these two systems to determine which compensates hurricane victims best.  In light of its analysis, this Note ultimately concludes that neither system satisfactorily compensates victims.  Yet, tort could play some role in hurricane-related damage.  Tort law could effectively deter negligent behavior by imposing liability on …


Not Just For Products Liability: Applying The Economic Loss Rule Beyond Its Origins, Danielle Sawaya Nov 2014

Not Just For Products Liability: Applying The Economic Loss Rule Beyond Its Origins, Danielle Sawaya

Fordham Law Review

    Most litigants, if given the chance, prefer to assert tort theories to recover their economic losses, rather than rely on the remedies provided under contract law. This is primarily because plaintiffs have the potential to recover more damages under tort law than contract law. However, most courts have adopted a doctrine known as the economic loss rule to bar plaintiffs from asserting certain tort theories to recover for their economic loss. Although the economic loss rule may seem like an easy way to maintain the boundary between tort law and contract law, confusion abounds when courts attempt to determine the …


The Three Lives Of The Alien Tort Statute: The Evolving Role Of The Judiciary In U.S. Foreign Relations, Thomas H. Lee Jan 2014

The Three Lives Of The Alien Tort Statute: The Evolving Role Of The Judiciary In U.S. Foreign Relations, Thomas H. Lee

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explains how the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) began in the late eighteenth century as a national security statute that the First Congress and early federal district judges saw as a way to afford damages remedies to British merchants, creditors, and other subjects whose persons or property were injured under circumstances in which treaties or the law of nations assigned responsibility to the United States. Torts committed within the United States by private American citizens were the most likely such circumstances. The ultimate aims of the statute were to avoid renewed war with Great Britain and the other European …


The Role Of The Judge In Non-Class Settlement, Howard M. Erichson Jan 2013

The Role Of The Judge In Non-Class Settlement, Howard M. Erichson

Faculty Scholarship

This commentary argues that judges lack the authority, as a general matter, to approve or reject non-class settlements. While judges overseeing mass litigation can set the stage for settlement by instituting phased discovery, scheduling bellwether trials, and other methods, they should respect the line between facilitation of settlement and control over settlement terms. The paper was presented in response to Judge Alvin Hellerstein’s and his special masters' account of their handling of the September 11 clean-up litigation.


The Fraud-On-The-Market Tort, John C.P. Goldberg, Benjamin C. Zipursky Jan 2013

The Fraud-On-The-Market Tort, John C.P. Goldberg, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Faculty Scholarship

Fraud on the market is at the core of contemporary securities law, permitting 10b-5 class actions to proceed without direct proof of investor reliance on a misrepresentation. Yet the ambiguities of this idea have fractured the Supreme Court from its initial recognition of the doctrine in Basic v. Levinson to its recent decision in Amgen, Inc. v. Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds. Amidst divergent views of the coherence and advisability of liability for fraud on the market a fundamental question lurks: is a suit for damages that invokes the fraud-on-the-market theory a claim for common law deceit, such that …


The Inner Morality Of Private Law, Benjamin C. Zipursky Jan 2013

The Inner Morality Of Private Law, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Faculty Scholarship

Lon Fuller's classic The Morality of Law is an exploration of the basic principles of a legal system: the law should be publicly promulgated, prospective, clear, and general. So deep are these principles, he argued, that too great a deviation from them would not simply create a bad legal system and bad law, but would render the products of such a system undeserving of the name "law" at all. In this essay, I argue that Fuller's basic principles are not in fact desiderata for all of law, observing that much of private law plainly flouts them; it is unwritten, retroactive, …


Civil Recourse Defended: A Reply To Posner, Calabresi, Rustad, Chamallas, And Robinette, Benjamin C. Zipursky, John C.P. Goldberg Jan 2013

Civil Recourse Defended: A Reply To Posner, Calabresi, Rustad, Chamallas, And Robinette, Benjamin C. Zipursky, John C.P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

As part of a symposium issue of the Indiana Law Journal devoted to our Civil Recourse Theory of Tort Law, we respond to criticisms by Judge Calabresi, Judge Posner, and Professors Chamallas, Robinette, and Rustad. Calabresi and Posner criticize Civil Recourse Theory as a bit of glib moralism that fails to generate useful answers to the difficult questions that courts face when applying Tort Law. We show with several examples, both old and new, that the glibness is all on their side. From duty to causation to punitive damages, from products liability to fraud to privacy, our scholarship has had …


Palsgraf, Punitive Damages, And Preemption, Benjamin C. Zipursky Jan 2012

Palsgraf, Punitive Damages, And Preemption, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Faculty Scholarship

This Article utilizes civil recourse theory along with a pragmatic conceptualist methodology to solve three problems in tort law: one on Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., one on punitive damages (as seen in the Supreme Court’s struggles with Philip Morris v. Williams), and one on federal preemption (as seen in the Supreme Court’s 4-4 deadlock in Warner-Lambert Company v. Kent). Confusion has been generated by a failure to recognize that -- despite the many aspects of tort law that render it importantly public -- there is something distinctively private about the common law of torts. When one firmly rejects …


Consent V. Closure, Howard M. Erichson, Benjamin C. Zipursky Jan 2011

Consent V. Closure, Howard M. Erichson, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Faculty Scholarship

Claimants, defendants, courts, and counsel are understandably frustrated by the difficulty of resolving mass tort cases. Defendants demand closure, but class certification has proved elusive and non-class settlements require individual consent. Lawyers and scholars have been drawn to strategies that solve the problem by empowering plaintiffs’ counsel to negotiate package deals that effectively sidestep individual consent. In the massive Vioxx settlement, the parties achieved closure by including terms that made it unrealistic for any claimant to decline. The American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law of Aggregate Litigation offers another path to closure: it proposes to permit clients to consent …


Uncertainty And The Advantage Of Collective Settlement Symposium: The Limits Of Predictability And The Value Of Uncertainty: Sixteenth Annual Clifford Symposium On Tort Law And Social Policy, Howard M. Erichson Jan 2010

Uncertainty And The Advantage Of Collective Settlement Symposium: The Limits Of Predictability And The Value Of Uncertainty: Sixteenth Annual Clifford Symposium On Tort Law And Social Policy, Howard M. Erichson

Faculty Scholarship

Judgments are printed in black and white; reality comes in shades of gray. The settlement palette available to negotiating parties, unlike the adjudication palette available to judges and juries, offers a range of grays to suit the realities of uncertain liability, uncertain causation, and uncertain damages. Settlement thus offers certain advantages over adjudication. I am not referring to process advantages, such as speed, economy, privacy, and relationship preservation. Rather, I am referring to the idea that settlements may offer outcomes that more accurately comport with justice under the relevant facts and law. There is, of course, a long-running debate over …


Integrity And The Incongruities Of Justice: A Review Of Daniel Markovits, A Modern Legal Ethics, Benjamin C. Zipursky Jan 2010

Integrity And The Incongruities Of Justice: A Review Of Daniel Markovits, A Modern Legal Ethics, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Faculty Scholarship

Daniel Markovits’ recent book, A Modern Legal Ethics: Adversary Advocacy in a Democratic Age, begins by articulating an ethical quandary common to litigators: how can I advocate zealously for a client whose story might not be true and whose causes might not be just? In Markovits’ hands, the dilemmas of the adversary advocate are transformed into a philosophical puzzle about the nature of integrity and the very idea of fidelity to a client. Lawyers face a far more onerous ethical burden than is sometimes recognized, Markovits argues, for the adversary advocate in our legal system is professionally obligated to lie …


Torts As Wrongs, John C.P. Goldberg, Benjamin C. Zipursky Jan 2010

Torts As Wrongs, John C.P. Goldberg, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Faculty Scholarship

Torts scholars hold different views on why tort law shifts costs from plaintiffs to defendants. Some invoke notions of justice, some efficiency, and some compensation. Nearly all seem to agree, however, that tort law is about the allocation of losses. This Article challenges the widespread embrace of loss-based accounts as fundamentally misguided. It is wrongs not losses that lie at the foundation of tort law. Tort suits are about affording plaintiffs an avenue of civil recourse against those who have wronged them. Although torts were once routinely understood as wrongs, since Holmes’s time, tort scholars have tended to suppose that …


The Easy Case For Products Liability: A Response To Polinsky & Shavell, Benjamin C. Zipursky, John C.P. Goldberg Jan 2010

The Easy Case For Products Liability: A Response To Polinsky & Shavell, Benjamin C. Zipursky, John C.P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

In their article “The Uneasy Case for Product Liability,” Professors Polinsky and Shavell assert the extraordinary claim that there should be no tort liability - none at all - for injuries caused by widely-sold products. In particular, they claim to have found convincing evidence that the threat of tort liability creates no additional incentives to safety beyond those already provided by regulatory agencies and market forces, and that tort compensation adds little or no benefit to injury victims beyond the compensation already provided by various forms of insurance. In this response, we explain that, even on its own narrow terms, …


Choice Of Law And Predictability Of Decisions In Products Liability Cases, Michael Ena Jan 2007

Choice Of Law And Predictability Of Decisions In Products Liability Cases, Michael Ena

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Comment explores the complicated choice of law questions arising in products liability cases where the product in question is often produced in one state, sold in another, and caused an injury in a third. Which state's law will be used is often a highly contested issue among the interested parties to such a suit. Because of the lack of uniformity in the choice of law methodologies and the differences in rules of law among the states, decisions are often inconsistent and highly unpredictable. Predictability of law is especially important in the products liability context for identification of business risks …


Sleight Of Hand, Benjamin C. Zipursky Jan 2007

Sleight Of Hand, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Faculty Scholarship

Thanks to Richard Posner's classic 1972 article, A Theory of Negligence Law, the Hand formula of United States. v. Carroll Towing Co. is perhaps the most central idea of many first-year torts classes today. Students learn that the meaning of negligence should be understood in terms of Judge Learned Hand's formula comparing the costs of taking precautions with the product of the likelihood of injury without those precautions and the magnitude of such injury. There is more than a little irony, however, in the superstar status of the Hand formula in negligence law. Carroll Towing is not a negligence case …


Theory Of Punitive Damages, Benjamin C. Zipursky Jan 2005

Theory Of Punitive Damages, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Faculty Scholarship

A contemporary theory of punitive damages must answer two questions: (1) what place, if any, do punitive damages have in the civil law of tort, given that they appear to involve an idea of criminal punishment? (2) why are punitive damages subject to special constitutional scrutiny, as in the Supreme Court's decision in BMW v. Gore, if they really are part of the civil law of tort? The article offers a theory that can answer both of these questions. Punitive damages have a double aspect, corresponding to two senses of "punitive." Insofar as they pertain to the state's goal of …


Are Talebearers Really As Bad As Talemakers?: Rethinking Republisher Liability In An Information Age , Jennifer L. Del Medico Jan 2004

Are Talebearers Really As Bad As Talemakers?: Rethinking Republisher Liability In An Information Age , Jennifer L. Del Medico

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Comment critiques the legal landscape surrounding republisher liability for defamation and ultimately calls for a more reaching approach to protect against such liability. Historically at common law republishers could be held liable for defamation regardless of whether they attributed the source of the material. However, starting in 1933 courts articulated the “wire service defense” that sought to eliminate liability for republishers when they “republished a wire story from a generally recognized reliable source of daily news.” Subsequent to the 1933 Florida court’s articulation of the defense many jurisdictions have adopted it. New York stands out as one of the …


Doing Good, Doing Well Symposium, Howard M. Erichson Jan 2004

Doing Good, Doing Well Symposium, Howard M. Erichson

Faculty Scholarship

Rather than focusing on the differences between tort lawyers and activists as they ally with each other, this Article focuses on the motivations and explanations of the tort lawyers themselves. Positioned at the intersection of big-money practice and social change litigation, mass torts provide a useful study in multiple motivations. While financial incentives for plaintiffs' lawyers explain much of what happens in mass torts, policy objectives come into play as well, at least in the lawyers' rhetoric. Despite the obvious difficulty distinguishing reasons from rhetoric and rationalization, it is worth exploring the significance of mixed motives for lawyers who are …


Civil Recourse, Not Corrective Justice, Benjamin C. Zipursky Jan 2003

Civil Recourse, Not Corrective Justice, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Extra! Extra! Read All About It: What A Plaintiff "Knows Or Should Know" Based On Officials' Statements And Media Coverage Of Police Misconduct For Notice Of A § 1983 Municipal Liability Claim, Jenny Rivera Jan 2000

Extra! Extra! Read All About It: What A Plaintiff "Knows Or Should Know" Based On Officials' Statements And Media Coverage Of Police Misconduct For Notice Of A § 1983 Municipal Liability Claim, Jenny Rivera

Fordham Urban Law Journal

The article argues that the Second Circuit's recent decisions in Clinton v. City of New York and Monzon v. City of New York reduce the effectiveness of a §1983 claim against a municipality. The article highlights that the element of subjectivity required to determine the accrual period of a §1983 claim restricts the utility of the claim because it adopts a cultural standard at odds with a racialized societal reality. The author discusses whether consideration of plaintiffs' testimony, statements of state and local police officials, and media coverage of municipal and state employee actions should factor into determining the accrual …


Why Civil Rights Lawsuits Do Not Deter Police Misconduct: The Conundrum Of Indemnification And A Proposed Solution, Richard Emery, Ilann Margalit Maazel Jan 2000

Why Civil Rights Lawsuits Do Not Deter Police Misconduct: The Conundrum Of Indemnification And A Proposed Solution, Richard Emery, Ilann Margalit Maazel

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This essay argues that indemnification of police officers found liable in civil suits works against deterring officers from future misconduct. The essay explains how the existing indemnification scheme results in tax payers funding these judgments and settlements and explains the mechanisms surrounding representation of a defendant officer and the city's indemnification of a decision. The author suggests a solution that allows for compensation of plaintiffs and deterrence of officers. Under the proposed solution, judges should always allow compensation for plaintiffs but should consider the officer's prior history of misconduct, the disciplinary measures taken against such misconduct, and the defendant's ability …


Tort Suits For Injuries Sustained During Illegal Abortions: The Effects Of Judicial Bias , Gail D. Hollister Jan 2000

Tort Suits For Injuries Sustained During Illegal Abortions: The Effects Of Judicial Bias , Gail D. Hollister

Faculty Scholarship

Most courts hold that, by agreeing to have an illegal abortion, a woman forfeits her right to recover for injuries tortuously inflicted during that abortion. Nevertheless, most courts do permit suits by those injured in the course of committing other crimes, and they usually do so without considering whether plaintiff's criminal conduct should prevent recovery. Part II of this Article explores and discredits the reasons offered for prohibiting recovery in abortion suits. 21 Part III analyzes, on a chronological basis, each state's decisions prohibiting such recovery. Part IV discusses possible explanations for the abortion decisions, noting that these women's claims …