Torts Commons^™

Punitive Damages Revisited: A Statistical Analysis Of How Federal Circuit Courts Decide The Constitutionality Of Such Awards, Hironari Momioka

Cleveland State Law Review

Using data from punitive damages decisions of U.S. federal circuit courts from 2004 to 2012, this paper attempts to establish empirically the following: (1) there is no apparent statistical difference between the levels of jury and judge awards; (2) U.S. Supreme Court decisions such as Philip Morris (2007) or Exxon (2008) do not actually or substantially affect the level of punitive damage awards; (3) with regard to the cases involving remittitur, or reduction of awards, the Exxon decision did not radically affect the decreasing ratio of punitive to compensatory damage awards; (4) as the levels of compensatory awards go up, …

Positive Externalities And The Economics Of Proximate Cause, Israel Gilead, Michael D. Green

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Copyright Owners' Putative Interests In Privacy, Reputation, And Control: A Reply To Goold, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

My own view is that Goold overstates the explanatory role of tort law. But even were that not the case, the courts need to reach some kind of “settled” understanding on these various interests before a cause of action is created or definitively rejected, and that no such consensus on the three matters mentioned yet exists, whether they are viewed as forms of tort or otherwise. Goold’s work may nevertheless be an important step toward reaching closure on these and other open questions in copyright law.

Arkansas, Meet Tarasoff: The Question Of Expanded Liability To Third Persons For Mental Health Professionals, J. Thomas Sullivan

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Forty-Eight States Are Probably Not Wrong: An Argument For Modernizing Georgia’S Legal Malpractice Statute Of Limitations, Ben Rosichan

Georgia State University Law Review

The legal profession is largely self-regulated, and each state has a bar association charged with creating and enforcing basic standards of professionalism and competence for attorneys. Unfortunately, attorneys do not always adhere to these standards. In Georgia, the State Bar can address attorney misconduct through remedial measures up to and including disbarment. The State Bar cannot, however, compensate wronged clients through monetary damages.Thus, some wronged clients must resort to a lawsuit for legal malpractice where a financial recovery is necessary to make the client whole again.

The statute of limitations for legal malpractice claims should not be so restrictive that …

The Virtue Of Process: Finding The Legitimacy Of Judicial Fact-Finding In Personal Injury Litigation, Nayha Acharya

PhD Dissertations

This thesis is an inquiry into the legitimacy of judicial fact-finding in civil litigation. Judges make authoritative factual findings in conditions of uncertainty and the decision-making process cannot, and does not, guarantee the accuracy of those outcomes. Given the inevitable risk of error, on what basis is the authority of judicial fact-finding legitimate? This project provides a framework of procedural legitimacy that bridges two unavoidable aspects of adjudication: factual indeterminacy and the need for justifiably authoritative dispute resolution. This work draws of the legal theories of Lon Fuller and Jurgen Habermas to substantiate the notion of procedural legitimacy in the …

Riparian Rights In A Polluted World: Property Right Or Tort?, Daniel P. Fernandez

Barry Law Review

No abstract provided.

Toward The Search For The Proper Liability Rule For Harms Resulting From Sources Of Risk: A Different Approach To The Choice Between Strict Liability And Fault-Based Regime, Wen-Hsuan Yang

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

An important issue in Taiwan today concerns the rising tension between strict liability and negligence. Article 191-3 of the Civil Code of Taiwan imposes a fault-based standard of liability on persons conducting dangerous activities. On the other hand, the majority of scholars believe that to afford greater protection, this rule should be changed into a strict liability rule.

Traditionally, three arguments make it preferable to impose strict liability under certain circumstances. First, strict liability induces more safety incentives on the part of the defendant. Second, fairness requires that one who benefits from conducting dangerous activities should bear the risk of …

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.

‘Relational Privacy’ & Tort, Stuart Hargreaves

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

This Article argues that the current interpretation given to the four-part invasion of privacy framework by the courts is inadequate in the face of modern privacy challenges. In particular, it struggles with claims for privacy over public matters or other ‘non-secret’ matters that an individual may nonetheless have some ongoing privacy interest in. This Article suggests that this struggle is the result of the courts adopting a fixed, binary approach to privacy, which is itself grounded in a liberal-individualistic account of autonomy. While this may be a natural response to concerns about limiting the scope of the tort, it is …

Obesity Prevention Policies At The Local Level: Tobacco's Lessons, Paul A. Diller

Maine Law Review

For at least a decade, commentators have speculated that obesity is the next tobacco, a public health scourge that might nonetheless offer a gold mine to ambitious plaintiffs’ lawyers. Successful lawsuits, as in the tobacco context, might spur the food industry to reform its practices so as to help reduce the alarmingly high national obesity rate. The obesity narrative, however, has not played out accordingly to the same script as tobacco. Relatively quick action by most state legislatures immunized the food industry to tort lawsuits seeking obesity-related damages, and the scant judicial opinions on the issue have skeptically assessed plaintiffs’ …

The Home-Field Disadvantage: Tort Liability And Immunity For Paid Physicians During Disasters Within The Pacific Northwest Emergency Management Arrangement Member States, Stephen Seely

Seattle University Law Review

This Note identifies how the Pacific Northwest Emergency Management Arrangement member states of Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington apply tort liability and immunity to medical professionals during times of disaster. This Note also identifies an example statutory scheme that, if enacted, will provide equal protection to all physicians who provide care to disaster victims, regardless of their local or out-of-state status.

The Domain Of Torts, Alex Stein

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Betterment, Michael G. Pratt

Dalhousie Law Journal

When property is wrongfully damaged the cost of reinstatement is often the appropriate measure of damages. Reinstatement by repair or replacement is, however often possible only by replacing old materials with new materials that enhance the value of the property, generating "betterment." In such cases courts are faced with a choice whether to abide the betterment and award the cost of reinstatement, or reduce damages to offset the betterment. Examples of both responses to betterment are found in the cases, but no clear principle has been articulated by Canadian courts as to when one is to be preferred over the …

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.

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

Faculty Scholarship

Black's Law Dictionary defines “tort” as a civil wrong for which a remedy may be obtained. In examining both the economics and jurisprudence related to legal malpractice, the article discusses why the “remedy” portion of this definition is unavailable for many victims of legal malpractice. This discussion considers the different stages of a legal malpractice case, including the challenges that injured persons face in retaining experienced counsel to represent them, the anatomy of the legal malpractice case, and the difficulties in collecting judgements or settlements. The discussion will consider how “capture” and “judicial bias” contribute to the “disappearing legal malpractice …

Private Rights And Private Wrongs, Andrew S. Gold

Michigan Law Review

Review of Private Wrongs by Arthur Ripstein.

Tort Law Inside Out, Cristina Carmody Tilley

Faculty Publications

For more than a century, scholars have been looking at tort law from the outside in. Theorists committed to external goals like efficient allocation of resources or moral justice have treated tort as a mere vehicle for the achievement of their policy preferences, rather than as a body of law with a discernible internal purpose. It is time to revisit tort on its own terms.

This Article takes its cue from the New Doctrinalists, who urge that extralegal normative insights from fields such as economics or philosophy aid adjudication only when they are directly tethered to legal concepts; that is, …

Developing Exposure-Based Preconception Tort Liability: A Scientific Challenge To Traditional Tort Concepts, Nicholas P. Putz

Catholic University Law Review

With all of the recent advances in science and technology, humans are being exposed to many new and complex substances for the first time. Such exposure has led to an array of medical complications, ranging from cancer to physical deformity. However, simultaneous advances in other areas of science and technology are, for the first time, beginning to provide humans with the tools to pinpoint the causes of disease. Unfortunately, a sufficient causal diagnosis in the medical field does not directly translate to an actionable harm in the U.S. legal system. In particular, injuries that may have resulted from prior generational …

Rape On The Washington Southern: The Tragic Case Of Hines V. Garrett, Michael I. Krauss

Catholic University Law Review

In 1919, Ms. Julia May Garret, a young Virginian woman, was brutally raped by two different men as she was walking home after the Washington Southern Railway failed to stop at her designated station. What followed was a legal battle that created precedent still discussed in American casebooks today. Although most case law recognizes that the criminal acts of third parties severs liability because such conduct is considered unforeseeable, Hines v. Garrett held that the harm Ms. Garrett suffered was within the risk created by the railroad’s negligence, and as a common carrier, the railroad owed her a duty to …

Keep Out! The Efficacy Of Trespass, Nuisance And Privacy Torts As Applied To Drones, Hillary B. Farber

Georgia State University Law Review

A few years ago one might have seen a small object flying overhead without any idea what it could be. Today, it is fairly commonplace to see drones flying around our neighborhood skies. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) predicts there will be seven million drones populating our skies by 2020. In 2015 hobbyists, recreational users, and commercial businesses purchased unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly referred to as drones, in record-breaking numbers. Estimates reveal that over 4.3 million drones were sold worldwide in 2015. Trade industry experts predicted that more than 2.8 million drones would be sold in the U.S. in 2016 …

Disability Rights In The Age Of Uber: Applying The Americans With Disabilities Act Of 1990 To Transportation Network Companies, Rachel Reed

Georgia State University Law Review

Within the past year, individual plaintiffs and disability rights organizations have initiated a number of lawsuits against Uber, and similar companies like Lyft, alleging violations of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (Title III). In each of these cases, the plaintiffs’ success turns on affirmatively answering one significant threshold question: Whether Uber, or a similar entity, falls within the scope of Title III. Traditional taxi companies fall squarely within the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990’s (ADA) coverage under 42 U.S.C. § 12184 (§ 12184), which governs private companies that provide transportation services. Given the similarities …

Having An Affair May Shorten Your Life: The Ashley Madison Suicides, Sakinah N. Jones

Georgia State University Law Review

Ashley Madison is an online dating service originally designed for people in committed relationships who want to cheat on their partners. In 2015, the website claimed to be “100% discreet.” Ashley Madison’s FAQs promised that its users would never compromise their “safety, privacy or security” and would never have to reveal their identities unless they chose to.

Ashley Madison’s concept attracted over forty million ostensibly anonymous members to its site. In July 2015, a group calling itself The Impact Team (Impact) hacked into Ashley Madison’s parent company, Avid Life Media, Inc. (Avid Life), breaching its security walls and reaching directly …

Trial And Error: Legislating Adr For Medical Malpractice Reform, Lydia Nussbaum

Maryland Law Review

The U.S. healthcare system has a problem: hundreds of thousands of people die each year, and over a million are injured, by medical mistakes that could have been avoided. Furthermore, over ninety percent of these patients and their families never learn of the errors or receive redress. This problem persists, despite myriad reforms to the medical malpractice system, because of lawmakers’ dominant focus on reducing providers’ liability insurance costs. Reform objectives are beginning to change, however, and the vehicle for implementing these changes is alternative dispute resolution (“ADR”). Historically, legislatures deployed ADR to curb malpractice litigation and restrict patients’ access …

Simmons V. Briones, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 9, Annie Avery

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

A judgment for penalty attorney fees and costs against a driver in an action that arises out of a motor vehicle accident is not a “judgment . . . upon a cause of action” arising out of the use of a motor vehicle such that its nonpayment may result in the suspension of driving privileges under NRS § 485.302.

Retaliatory Rico And The Puzzle Of Fraudulent Claiming, Nora Freeman Engstrom

Michigan Law Review

Over the past century, the allegation that the tort liability system incentivizes legal extortion and is chock-full of fraudulent claims has dominated public discussion and prompted lawmakers to ever-more-creatively curtail individuals’ incentives and opportunities to seek redress. Unsatisfied with these conventional efforts, in recent years, at least a dozen corporate defendants have “discovered” a new fraud-fighting tool. They’ve started filing retaliatory RICO suits against plaintiffs and their lawyers and experts, alleging that the initiation of certain non meritorious litigation constitutes racketeering activity— while tort reform advocates have applauded these efforts and exhorted more “courageous” companies to follow suit. Curiously, though, …

Enhancing Cybersecurity In The Private Sector By Means Of Civil Liability Lawsuits - The Connie Francis Effect, Jeffrey F. Addicott

Faculty Articles

The purpose of this article is to explore the threats posed by cybersecurity breaches, outline the steps taken by the government to address those threats in the private sector economy, and call attention to the ultimate solution, which will most certainly spur private businesses to create a more secure cyber environment for the American people-a Connie Francis-styled cyber civil action lawsuit.

Compensatory Damages Granted In Personal Injuries: Supplementing Islamic Jurisprudence With Elements Of Common Law, Majed Alshaibani

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation discusses the types of compensatory damages, monetary and non-monetary losses, granted in Saudi Arabian personal injury cases. The main issue of this paper is to determine the missing types of monetary and nonmonetary losses when estimating compensation, thereby unjustly leaving injured parties without fair compensation. The problem of this study is that some victims do not get compensation personal injuries claims, such as loss of wages, lost earning capacity, and emotional distress. This is due to many reasons. One of the most obvious reasons is the absence of clearly written personal injuries statutes that cover all types of …

Flood And Erosion Control Structures (Climate Adaptation Academy Fact Sheet #4), Audrey Elzerman

Sea Grant Law Fellow Publications

No abstract provided.