Torts Commons^™

Mainstreaming Privacy Torts, Danielle Keats Citron

Faculty Scholarship

In 1890, Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis proposed a privacy tort and seventy years later, William Prosser conceived it as four wrongs. In both eras, privacy invasions primarily caused psychic and reputational wounds of a particular sort. Courts insisted upon significant proof due to those injuries’ alleged ethereal nature. Digital networks alter this calculus by exacerbating the injuries inflicted. Because humiliating personal information posted online has no expiration date, neither does individual suffering. Leaking databases of personal information and postings that encourage assaults invade privacy in ways that exact significant financial and physical harm. This dispels concerns that plaintiffs might …

Privacy As Product Safety, James Grimmelmann

Faculty Scholarship

Online social media confound many of our familiar expectaitons about privacy. Contrary to popular myth, users of social software like Facebook do care about privacy, deserve it, and have trouble securing it for themselves. Moreover, traditional database-focused privacy regulations on the Fair Information Practices model, while often worthwhile, fail to engage with the distinctively social aspects of these online services.

Instead, online privacy law should take inspiration from a perhaps surprising quarter: product-safety law. A web site that directs users' personal information in ways they don't expect is a defectively designed product, and many concepts from products liability law could …

United States Ex Rel. Drc, Inc. V. Custer Battles, Llc: A Brutal Battle Foreshadowing The Future Of False Claims Act Litigation, Kathleen H. Harne

Maryland Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Commentary [On Negligent Infliction Of Emotional Distress], Oscar S. Gray

Faculty Scholarship

These comments question the terminology used in the Third Restatement of Torts for psychological effects, partially on the ground of obsolescence in light of developments in the neurosciences. Instead of the distinction emphasized in the Third Restatement between “physical harm” and “emotional disturbance” (or “distress”), they suggest a distinction between “harm” that constitutes an impairment of functionality, which would be treated as a free-standing basis for liability, like conventional diseases or injuries, and “mere feelings”, which would continue to be compensable in negligence only parasitically. Similarly, the interest protected should be regarded not as an interest in freedom from “disturbance” …

Hatfill V. New York Times Co.: From Watchdog To Attack Dog—Transforming The Modern Media Into “Big Brother”, William C. Ferguson Iv

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Asbestos Fraud Should Lead To Fairness: Why Congress Should Enact The Fairness In Asbestos Injury Resolution Act, Elise Gelinas

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Handicapping Effect Of Judicial Opinions In Reproductive Tort Cases: Correcting The Legal Perception Of Persons With Disabilities, Kerry T. Cooperman

Maryland Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Khalifa V. Shannon: How Much Interference Is Too Much When It Comes To A Tort For Interfering With The Parent-Child Relationship?, Beth Rosenberg

Maryland Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Double Helix, Double Standards: Private Matters And Public People, Teneille R. Brown

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Tort Liability For Vendors Of Insecure Software: Has The Time Finally Come?, Michael D. Scott

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sexual Harassment In Education And Student Athletics: A Case For Why Title Ix Sexual Harassment Jurisprudence Should Develop Independently Of Title Vii, Michael E. Buchwald

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Impersonating The Legislature: State Attorneys General And Parens Patriae Product Litigation, Donald G. Gifford

Faculty Scholarship

The state attorney general has emerged during the past decade as a “super plaintiff” in state parens patriae litigation against manufacturers of cigarettes, automobiles, lead paint, and pharmaceuticals. Attorneys general sue on behalf of their states as the collective plaintiff, seeking reimbursement for the costs of treating or preventing product-caused diseases suffered by individual residents, even though such individual victims would not themselves be able to recover as plaintiffs. More importantly, they seek to supplant the regulatory regimes previously enacted by Congress, the state legislature, or federal agencies with one that reflects their own visions. This Article traces how state …

Reservoirs Of Danger: The Evolution Of Public And Private Law At The Dawn Of The Information Age, Danielle Keats Citron

Faculty Scholarship

A defining problem at the dawn of the Information Age will be securing computer databases of ultra-sensitive personal information. These reservoirs of data fuel our Internet economy but endanger individuals when their information escapes into the hands of cyber-criminals. This juxtaposition of opportunities for rapid economic growth and novel dangers recalls similar challenges society and law faced at the outset of the Industrial Age. Then, reservoirs collected water to power textile mills: the water was harmless in repose but wrought havoc when it escaped. After initially resisting Rylands v. Fletcher’s strict liability standard as undermining economic development, American courts …

Against Genetic Exceptionalism: An Argument In Favor Of The Viability Of Preconception Genetic Torts, Daniel S. Goldberg

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

The Death Of Causation: Mass Products Torts' Incomplete Incorporation Of Social Welfare Principles, Donald G. Gifford

Faculty Scholarship

Legal actions against the manufacturers of disease-causing products, such as cigarettes and asbestos insulation, have redefined the landscape of tort liability during the past generation. These actions bedevil courts, because any particular victim often is unable to identify the manufacturer whose product caused her harm. Increasingly, but inconsistently, courts allow victims to recover without proof of individualized causation. This article argues that instrumental approaches seek to turn mass products tort law into the equivalent of a social welfare program, not unlike workers’ compensation or Social Security. As with any such program, the accident compensation system must include compensation entitlement boundaries, …

Reining In The Data Traders: A Tort For The Misuse Of Personal Information, Sarah Ludington

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Market Share Liability Beyond Des Cases: The Solution To The Causation Dilemma In Lead Paint Litigation?, Donald G. Gifford, Paolo Pasicolan

Faculty Scholarship

Over 300,000 young children in America—disproportionately poor and children of color—suffer from childhood lead poisoning. This disease ordinarily is caused by the deterioration of lead paint into flakes, chips, and dust that children ingest or inhale. Victims of childhood lead poisoning have tried to sue manufacturers of lead paint or lead pigment, but they face a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. Traditional tort law requires a plaintiff to prove that a specific tortfeasor caused the harm. This is almost impossible in the lead paint context because the paint that caused the harm usually consists of many layers, applied over the course of …

The Challenge To The Individual Causation Requirement In Mass Products Torts, Donald G. Gifford

Faculty Scholarship

This article uses the example of mass products torts to test the traditional principle that requires a specific victim to prove that a particular injurer caused her harm in order to establish tort liability. Proponents of the instrumentalist conception of torts, notably those identified with law and economics such as Calabresi and Posner, view any requirement of individualized causation as “old-fashioned” and inconsistent with their goals of achieving loss minimization and loss distribution or wealth maximization. In contrast, corrective justice theorists, such as Ernest Weinrib, argue that particularized causation is intrinsic to the entire notion of tort liability. The judicial …

A New Kind Of "Outrageous Misconduct": Effects To Undermine The Law's Ability To Deter And Punish Intentional And Outrageous Corporate Behavior, Candace Howard

Student Articles and Papers

The current tort "reform" movement, if successful, will completely undermine our most effective tool for deterring outrageous corporate misconduct: the threat of punitive damages. Such "reform" would have a particularly egregious impact on the environment and public health because, due to a lack of enforcement and the undetectable nature of many pollutants, environmental offenses are often more difficult to deter than other types of offenses. The essay argues that, although rarely imposed for environmental offenses, punitive damages are especially vital in that arena because, when imposed, they are richly deserved. It concludes that, rather than tort reform, what we need …

The Peculiar Challenges Posed By Latent Diseases Resulting From Mass Products, Donald G. Gifford

Faculty Scholarship

Legal actions against manufacturers of products that cause latent diseases, such as asbestos products, cigarettes, lead-pigment, and Agent Orange, are the signature torts of our time. Yet within this rather important subset of tort liability, it is unlikely that the imposition of liability actually results in loss prevention. Three factors, present in varying combinations in the context of latent diseases resulting from product exposure, frustrate the deterrent impact of liability. First, an extended period of time—sometimes decades—passes between the time of the manufacturer’s distribution of the product and the imposition of liability. Second, the accident compensation system frequently is unable …

The Renaissance Of Accident Law Plans Revisited, Robert L. Rabin

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Neologisms Revisited, Guido Calabresi

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Causation And Responsibility: The Compensation Principle From Grotius To Calabresi, Francesco Parisi, Vincy Fon

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Costs Of The Costs Of Accidents , Jules Coleman

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Rise And Fall Of Law And Economics: An Essay For Judge Guido Calabresi, Ugo Mattei

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Accidents Of The Great Society, John C.P. Goldberg, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Deterrence Or Disgorgement? Reading Ciraolo After Campbell, Anthony J. Sebok

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Liability Insurance And Accident Prevention: The Evolution Of An Idea, Kenneth S. Abraham

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Calabresi's The Costs Of Accidents: A Generation Of Impact On Law And Scholarship, Donald G. Gifford

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Guido Calabresi's The Costs Of Accidents: A Reassessment, Richard A. Posner

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.