Torts Commons^™

Atlantic Richfield Company V. Montana Second Judicial District Court, Molly Kelly

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Landowners in Opportunity, Montana sought restoration damages from ARCO, Anaconda Copper Mining Company’s successor, to their property from over a century of processing ore at the Anaconda Smelter. ARCO argued that CERCLA preempted and barred any claim for restoration damages. The Montana Supreme Court held: landowners could bring their state common law claims seeking restoration damages; the state district court had subject matter jurisdiction; and landowners’ proposed restoration fund did not challenge EPA’s selected remedy under CERCLA.

Maine Physician Practice Guidelines: Implications For Medical Malpractice Litigation, Jennifer S. Begel

Maine Law Review

This Article assesses the use of physician practice guidelines as a vehicle for medical malpractice tort reform and focuses upon the State of Maine's legislation incorporating physician practice parameters into the defense of medical malpractice litigation. The Maine Medical Liability Demonstration Project (the “Demonstration Project”) legislatively adopts practice guidelines in four different medical specialties and allows physicians in those specialties to assert compliance with the applicable guideline as an affirmative defense. The affirmative defense of compliance with such guidelines has been touted as a means of protecting physicians from, and decreasing the costs associated with, medical malpractice litigation. While the …

Protecting Discretion: Judicial Interpretation Of The Discretionary Function Exception To The Federal Tort Claims Act, Donald N. Zillman University Of Maine School Of Law

Maine Law Review

In 1996 the Federal Tort Claims Act turns fifty. Few statutes reach the half-century mark only slightly amended and with their primary purposes still intact. The Federal Tort Claims Act is one such rare statute. The purpose of the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) was to make the United States liable for the torts of its employees committed in the scope of their employment. Today that sounds commonplace. Half a century ago, however, a considerable legislative effort was needed to overturn the doctrine of sovereign immunity that forbade the recovery of tort damages against the United States. Congress's rejecting sovereign …

The Unsettling Effect Of Maine Law On Settlement In Cases Involving Multiple Tortfeasors, Arlyn H. Weeks

Maine Law Review

When more than one person or entity causes injury to another, the multiple tortfeasors are jointly and severally liable to the injured party under Maine law. Maine has also provided since 1965 for comparison of the negligence of plaintiffs and defendants so that a plaintiff may not recover if his causative negligence is found to have equaled or exceeded that of the defendant. In addition, title 14, section 156 of the Maine Revised Statutes gives to each defendant the right to request that the jury allocate percentages of fault “contributed by each defendant.” Finally, title 14, section 163 of the …

Socialized Liability In Chinese Tort Law, Chenglin Liu

Faculty Articles

This article explores two unique aspects of the Chinese Tort Liability Law (TLL): (1) Article 24 holds that a party not at fault shall share the loss with the victim in non-strict liability cases under undefined circumstances, and (2) the government often shields a party at fault from liability in mass tort cases by disregarding the TLL entirely. These two aspects may seem contradictory; however, they are both based on the same principle of socialized liability, which is first articulated in this article.

Scholars often claim that Article 24 embodies the principle of equitable liability. This article challenges such claims …

Sailing Under False Colors: The Continuing Presence Of Negligence Principles In "Strict" Products Liability Law, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Dean Prosser, in his celebrated article, The Assault Upon the Citadel, compared the assault on warranty law's privity requirement to an attack on a stoutly defended fortress during the Middle Ages. Since that time, another conflict has arisen among students of products liability, namely whether product sellers should be subject to strict liability or whether certain aspects of this field should instead be controlled by negligence principles. However, unlike the assault some sixty years ago on the privity requirement, this present conflict bears a greater resemblance to the protracted trench warfare of World War I than it does to the …

Domestic Violence And Gender Equality: Recognition, Remedy, And (Possible) Retrenchment, Jennifer Wriggins

Faculty Publications

This paper is based on the author's presentation at the gender equality symposium. Professor Wriggins connects domestic violence and gender equality before tuming to some significant reforms of the U.S. legal system concerning domestic violence-all of them relatively recent. Moving on, she discusses her reflections on the 12 year law practice that informs her expertise before becoming a law professor and also her long involvement in the movement for LGBTQ equality. Drawing on that experience, Professor Wriggins shares firsthand views of some of the consequences of not having legal protections. Outlining some of the shortcomings and critiques of the reforms, …

Why Exempting Negligent Doctors May Reduce Suicide: An Empirical Analysis, John Shahar Dillbary, Griffin Edwards, Fredrick E. Vars

Indiana Law Journal

This Article is the first to empirically analyze the impact of tort liability on suicide. Counter-intuitively, our analysis shows that suicide rates increase when potential tort liability is expanded to include psychiatrists—the very defendants who would seem best able to prevent suicide. Using a fifty-state panel regression for 1981 to 2013, we find that states which allowed psychiatrists (but not other doctors) to be liable for malpractice resulting in suicide experienced a 9.3% increase in suicides. On the other hand, and more intuitively, holding non-psychiatrist doctors liable de-creases suicide by 10.7%. These countervailing effects can be explained by psychiatrists facing …

A Legal Perspective On The Trials And Tribulations Of Ai: How Artificial Intelligence, The Internet Of Things, Smart Contracts, And Other Technologies Will Affect The Law, Iria Giuffrida, Fredric Lederer, Nicolas Vermeys

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Whose Fault In An Aging World?: Comparing Dementia-Related Tort Liability In Common Law And Civil Law Jurisdictions, Trevor Ryan, Wendy Bonython

Washington International Law Journal

Age-related dementias have been identified as a global health priority, based on their rapidly rising incidence and associated economic burden. Behaviors symptomatic of dementias, such as wandering, potentially expose sufferers to increased likelihood of experiencing harm or causing harms to others. Yet what jurisprudence and case law exists on the issue of tortious liability of people with dementia is largely derived from the broader principles governing tortious liability of those with mental illness or otherwise impaired capacity. Those principles are themselves problematic, reflecting absolutist models of either personal liability (common law jurisdictions) or statutory personal immunity accompanied by imposition of …

Gratuitous Promises: Overseeing Athletic Organizations And The Duty To Care, Sam C. Ehrlich

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal (1994 - )

No abstract provided.

Bringing The Science Of Policing To Liability For Third-Party Crime At Shopping Malls, Aaron Twerski, John M. Shane

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Gossip And Gore: A Ghoulish Journey Into A Philosophical Thicket, Sean Hannon Williams

Michigan Law Review

A review of Don Herzog, Defaming the Dead.

For Whom The Statute Tolls? Not Even The Sacred Heart: Florida Class Action Jurisdiction And The Need For Savings Statute To Toll The Limitations Period, Laura Liles

Florida Law Review

Class actions are common litigation tools that plaintiffs use to efficiently adjudicate their rights. However, with the passage of the Class Action Fairness Act and the Florida Capacity to Sue statute, class plaintiffs could very quickly find their claims traveling from state to federal court, or simply being dismissed for lack of jurisdiction if originally filed in federal court. While this may not initially suggest an issue, CAFA and the Florida Capacity to Sue statute are creating tremendous traffic in federal courts. When considered with Florida’s strict application of the statute of limitations for class actions, a plaintiff’s limitations period …

Into The Gray Zone: Examining Mutual Combat As A Defense To Domestic Assault, Kristi A. Breyfogle

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

For offenses committed under Virginia’s assault and battery against a household or family member statute, the State should prosecute and punish in cases where both parties committed an assault and battery. Punishment, however, should consist of mainly individualized counseling or some other mitigated punishment for cases of mutual fighting.

Chairs, Stairs, And Automobiles: The Cultural Construction Of Injuries And The Failed Promise Of Law, David M. Engel

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 5 in Injury and Injustice: The Cultural Politics of Harm and Redress, Anne Bloom, David M. Engel & Michael McCann, eds.

Campbell-Ewald Co. V. Gomez: Diminishing The Derivative Sovereign Immunity Doctrine And The Social Costs Of Increasing Liability To Government Contractors, W. Logan Lewis

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Day In The Life Of Tort Law, Douglas H. Cook

Maine Law Review

What would one day's worth of tort law look like? We usually receive our doses of the law in measures other than per diem: by the case, by the brief, by the article, or by the treatise. There is, of course, a unity in each of those units; each one collects only those authorities that bear upon certain focused aspects of the law. For example, an appellate brief or a law review article is often a compendium of cases dealing within a narrow topical range, cases drawn from a span of many different days, years, or even decades. One way …

Access Denied—Using Procedure To Restrict Tort Litigation: The Israeli-Palestinian Experience, Gilat J. Bachar

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Procedural barriers which limit individuals’ ability to bring lawsuits—like conditioning litigation upon the provision of a bond—are a subtle way to reduce the volume of tort litigation. The use of such procedural doctrines often spares legislatures from the need to debate the substance of legal rights, especially when those rights are politically controversial. This Article presents a case study of this phenomenon which has escaped scholarly attention, in the intriguing context of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. On the books, a unique mechanism enables non-Israeli citizen Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to bring civil actions for damages against Israel …

Dignity Takings, Dignity Restoration: A Tort Law Perspective, Valerie P. Hans

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

Taking Note Of Notary Employees: Employer Liability For Notary Employee Misconduct, Nancy Perkins Spyke

Maine Law Review

The law of agency governs the relations between principals, agents, and third persons. A portion of that body of law deals with the liabilities that arise when an agent causes harm to a third party. Situations in which negligent employees cause harm to their employers' customers are ripe for the application of standard agency principles. Those principles dictate that the employer will be liable for the tort of an employee if the tort is committed in the scope of employment. The Restatement (Second) of Agency and case law provide many illustrations. If an employer directs an employee to perform a …

International Cybertorts: Expanding State Accountability In Cyberspace, Rebecca Crootof

Cornell Law Review

States are not being held accountable for the vast majority of their harmful cyberoperations, largely because classifications created in physical space do not map well onto the cyber domain. Most injurious and invasive cyberoperations are not cybercrimes and do not constitute cyberwarfare, nor are states extending existing definitions of wrongful acts permitting countermeasures to cyberoperations (possibly to avoid creating precedent restricting their own activities). Absent an appropriate label, victim states have few effective and nonescalatory responsive options, and the harms associated with these incidents lie where they fall.

This Article draws on tort law and international law principles to construct …

Punishment But Not A Penalty? Punitive Damages Are Impermissible Under Foreign Substantive Law, Paul A. Hoversten

Michigan Law Review

It is a well-established principle that no court applies the penal laws of another sovereign. But what exactly is a penal law? According to Judge Cardozo, a penal law effects “vindication of the public justice” rather than “reparation to one aggrieved.” Although courts have historically treated punitive damages as a purely civil remedy, that attitude has shifted over time. Modern American punitive damages serve not to compensate the plaintiff but to punish the defendant on behalf of the whole community. Therefore, when courts rely on foreign substantive law to impose punitive damages, they arguably violate the well-established principle that no …

Minimum Virtual Contacts: A Framework For Specific Jurisdiction In Cyberspace, Adam R. Kleven

Michigan Law Review

As the ubiquity and importance of the internet continue to grow, courts will address more cases involving online activity. In doing so, courts will confront the threshold issue of whether a defendant can be subject to specific personal jurisdiction. The Supreme Court, however, has yet to speak to this internet-jurisdiction issue. Current precedent, when strictly applied to the internet, yields fundamentally unfair results when addressing specific jurisdiction. To better achieve the fairness aim of due process, this must change. This Note argues that, in internet tort cases, the “express aiming” requirement should be discarded from the jurisdictional analysis and that …

Don’T Let The Bed Bugs Bill: Landlord Liability For Bed Bug Infestations In Georgia, Megan M. Harrison

Georgia State University Law Review

Although the historical relationship between bed bugs and humans dates back to ancient Egypt, the common bed bug, or Cimex lectularius, vanished from the beds of Americans around World War II. In the late 1990s, however, our bloodsucking bedfellows returned. Bed bug infestations are a growing public health issue. Bed bugs are now found in all fifty states, with populations in five states reaching epidemic levels. Both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) consider bed bugs a “pest of significant public health importance."

Despite their name, bed bugs are not limited to …

Individual Accountability For Corporate Crime, Gregory Gilchrist

Georgia State University Law Review

Corporate crime is too often addressed by fining the corporation, leaving the real people who committed the crime facing no consequence at all. This failure to hold individuals accountable in cases of corporate malfeasance generates an accountability gap that undermines deterrence and introduces expressive costs. Facing heightened criticism of this trend, then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates issued a policy designed to generate prosecutions of real people in cases of corporate wrongdoing. The policy reflects a strong and continuing demand for more prosecutions of individuals in the corporate context.

This Article contends that the effort to introduce accountability by increasing prosecutions …

When You Should Have Known: Rethinking Constructive Knowledge In Tort Liability For Sexual Transmission Of Hiv, John A. Turcotte

Maine Law Review

AIDS is a modern epidemic that has grabbed the forefront of this nation's attention like no other disease in the twentieth century. Despite vigorous medical research and experimentation, the disease remains incurable and ultimately fatal. Protecting the health of the citizens has always been a strong policy of the law. Tort liability for the spread of contagious diseases dates back to the early nineteenth century. Tort liability for sexual transmission of AIDS began to appear in the late 1980s, not long after the appearance of the disease. Based as it was on the tort actions arising from other transmittable diseases, …

How The Law Court Uses Duty To Limit The Scope Of Negligence Liability, Paul F. Macri

Maine Law Review

The element of duty is the least understood and most amorphous element of negligence. One reason that duty is not well understood is that duty analysis combines consideration of fact-specific issues of foreseeability of harm, relationship between the parties, and seriousness of injury with analysis of the public policy implications of finding a duty in the specific case, including the burden that will be placed on defendants by imposing a duty. This is a delicate balancing act for most courts. Over the last eleven years, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, has employed duty analysis in …

Not Fully Discretionary: Incorporating A Factor-Based Standard Into The Ftca's Discretionary Function Exception, Daniel Cohen

Northwestern University Law Review

The Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) pulls back the curtain of sovereign immunity and allows private citizens to directly sue the federal government for damages resulting from negligence. Passed in 1946 and never amended, the statute carries no limit on potential damages, only prohibiting punitive damages and jury trials. Other than those procedural limitations, the potential liability of the government is unlimited—except for one single exception: the discretionary function exception. The discretionary function exception shields the government from liability for “the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function or duty.” Congress failed to elaborate on the definition and scope …

Sb 219 - Autonomous Vehicles, W. Perry Hicks, Alan J. Ponce

Georgia State University Law Review

The Act amends Georgia’s Motor Vehicles and Traffic Code to create a legal framework for autonomous vehicles to operate in Georgia. Persons responsible for operating fully autonomous vehicles are exempted from holding a driver’s license. In the event of an accident involving an autonomous vehicle, the vehicle must remain at the scene and the operator of the autonomous vehicle must provide necessary information to law enforcement. Minimum liability insurance requirements for autonomous vehicles will be the same as minimum coverages required for the taxi and limousine industry after January 1, 2020. Minimum coverages are set at 250 percent of those …