Torts Commons^™

Product Liability, Franklin P. Brannan Jr., P. Michael Freed, Jake C. Evans

Mercer Law Review

This Article surveys developments in Georgia product liability law between June 1, 2013 and May 31, 2015. It covers noteworthy cases decided during this period by the Georgia Court of Appeals, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and the United States district courts located in Georgia.

Torts, Phillip Comer Griffeth, Cash V. Morris, Christopher R. Breault

Mercer Law Review

This Article surveys recent developments in Georgia tort law between June 1, 2014 and May 31, 2015.

Victim Compensation Funds And Tort Litigation Following Incidents Of Mass Violence, Paul Heaton, Ivan Waggoner, Jamie Morikawa

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Illusive "Reasonable Person": Can Neuroscience Help The Mentally Disabled?, Ian J. Cosgrove

Notre Dame Law Review

This Note argues that the distinction between what constitutes a physical versus a mental disability can no longer rationally be sustained. Specifically, its purpose is to show that providing an exception to the “reasonable person” standard in negligence actions for the physically disabled while withholding it for those with mental infirmities is increasingly indefensible. Part I briefly tracks the origins of the current rule in tort law that holds the mentally and physically disabled to separate standards. This discussion is purposely left short because of the breadth of scholarship tracing the standard. Part II seeks to justify, through neuroscientific brain …

Foreword: Legal Malpractice Is No Longer The Profession's Dirty Little Secret, Susan Saab Fortney

Faculty Scholarship

In 1994, Professor Manuel R. Ramos published a law review article called, Legal Malpractice: The Profession's Dirty Little Secret. As suggested by the title, Professor Ramos argued that legal malpractice was a "taboo subject" that has been "ignored by the legal profession, law schools, mandatory continuing legal education ("CLE") programs, and even by scholarly and lay publications." Thirty years later, legal malpractice is an ever-present threat that lawyers cannot afford to ignore.

Accessory Liability In Tort And Equity, Pey Woan Lee

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Unlike the position in criminal law, there does not currently exist a general doctrine of accessory liability in civil law. Thus, a person may be liable as an accessory in equity for dishonestly assisting with a breach of trust, but there is no tort for dishonest assistance. Rather, one who participates in another's tort will only be liable if he is a joint tortfeasor acting pursuant to a common design with the primary tortfeasor. This article examines the reasons for this divergence and evaluates the case for their assimilation. It observes that, contrary to common perception, the scope of participatory …

Negligence And Two-Sided Causation, Keith N. Hylton, Haizhen Lin, Hyo-Youn Chu

Faculty Scholarship

We extend the economic analysis of negligence and intervening causation to "two-sided causation" scenarios. In the two-sided causation scenario the effectiveness of the injurer's care depends on some intervention, and the risk of harm generated by the injurer's failure to take care depends on some other intervention. We find that the distortion from socially optimal care is more severe in the two-sided causation scenario than in the one-sided causation scenario, and generally in the direction of excessive care. The practical lesson is that the likelihood that injurers will have optimal care incentives under the negligence test in the presence of …

Encouraging Insurers To Regulate: The Role (If Any) For Tort Law, Kyle D. Logue

Articles

Insurance companies are financially responsible for a substantial portion of the losses associated with risky activities in the economy. The more insurers can lower the risks posed by their insureds, the more competitively they can price their policies, and the more customers they can attract. Thus, competition forces insurers to be private regulators of risk. To that end, insurers deploy a range of techniques to encourage their insureds to reduce the risks of their insured activities, from charging experience-rated premiums to discounting premium rates for insureds who make specific behavioral changes designed to reduce risk. Somewhat paradoxically, however, tort law …

Naquin V. Elevating Boats, Llc: The Fifth Circuit’S Improper Expansion Of Jones Act “Seaman Status” Qualification, Timothy M. O'Hara

Pace Law Review

The story began nearly a century ago, when Congress enacted the Jones Act and effectively made “seamen the most generously treated personal injury victims in American law.” But defining a Jones Act seaman has not come easy, as it took the United States Supreme Court seventy five years to arrive at the modern seaman status test. This commentary examines the “tortured history” of the Jones Act, how qualification for the statute’s protections has evolved, the modern seaman status test, and the implications of the Fifth Circuit’s recent application thereof. Section II gives a brief history and explanation of maritime law …

Environmental Hedonism Or, Securing The Environment Through The Common Law, George P. Smith Ii, David M. Steenburg

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

What We Have Here Is A Failure To Compensate: The Case For A Federal Damages Remedy In Koontz "Failed Exactions", Christopher M. Kieser

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

In Nollan v. California Coastal Commission, 483 U.S. 825 (1987), and Dolan v. City of Tigard, 512 U.S. 374 (1994), the Supreme Court held that an agency could not, consistent with the Takings Clause, condition a permit on a land exaction unless the exaction bears an “essential nexus” and “rough proportionality” to the harms the government seeks to mitigate. Then, in Koontz v. St. Johns Water Management District, 133 S. Ct. 2586 (2013), the Court extended Nollan and Dolan to exactions that were never completed because the property owner refused to acquiesce to the demand. Nevertheless, the Court held that …

Newsroom: Logan On Drone Law, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Personal Jurisdiction Based On The Local Effects Of Intentional Misconduct, Allan Erbsen

William & Mary Law Review

Intentional misconduct frequently has extraterritorial consequences. Terrorist attacks, toxic pollution, civil rights violations, and other intentional torts can cause harm within a state despite originating outside the state. Those harms raise a vexing constitutional question: when do the local effects of intentional wrongdoing authorize personal jurisdiction over a defendant whose conduct occurred outside the forum? The answer has several significant implications. Granting or denying jurisdiction can support or undermine regulatory interests by allocating power between states, imposes burdens on the parties that can impede access to justice, and alters risk assessments that shape both socially desirable and socially destructive behavior.

Double Damages Or Nothing: Whether Medicare Advantage Organizations Have A Private Cause Of Action Under The Medicare Secondary Payer Act, Jennifer A. Prevete

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Part I of this Note outlines the history and purpose of the Medicare statute, Medicare Advantage, and the MSP Act. The MSP Act dictates that insured individuals pursue coverage from “primary plans” while Medicare makes conditional payments with the agreement that the primary plans will reimburse the costs. Part II provides the MSP Act’s spectrum of interpretations and why the United States Circuit Courts of Appeals have read the private cause of action with varying expansiveness. Part III concludes that the private cause of action should not be extended to MAOs, asserting that the extension ultimately results in harm …

For Every Wrong, A Remedy: A Narrow Interpretation Of The Locomotive Inspection Act's Preemptive Scope In Asbestos Cases, Andrew Malzahn

Hamline Law Review

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In Praise Of Ex Ante Regulation, Brian Galle

Vanderbilt Law Review

The plaintiffs' daughter was four years old when they brought her in to the local medical clinic. Clinic staff gave the girl a sedative to keep her calm while they examined her, but they miscalculated the dose, and she later died.' Tort liability, or the specter of it, is supposed to discourage these kinds of preventable tragedies. The clinic's owner, fearing a potential crippling award to bereaved families, should have trained his staff more carefully. As it happens, the owner instead had carefully scooped all the assets out of the firm. When the girl's parents won a $34.6 million award …

On Regulatory Discord And Procedure, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Scholarly Works

Businesses are increasingly global. But domestic courts’ jurisdiction remains largely provincial; both public and private regulators have overlapping, mismatched authority. Regulatory discord is readily apparent in consumer protection cases. When the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act empowered state regulators while simultaneously creating an encompassing federal regulator—the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—it further contributed to overlap between federal agencies, states, and private litigation.

Whether this regulatory magnetism is optimal in terms of fundamental goals like compensation and deterrence is a hotly debated normative and empirical question. Yet, one need not wade too far into the substantive debate to appreciate …

Constructing Issue Classes, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

Scholarly Works

As government budgets shrink each year, enforcement responsibilities in products liability, consumer protection, and employment discrimination fall increasingly to private attorneys. But defendants have successfully layered new objections about noncohesive classes and unascertainable members atop legislative and judicial reforms to cripple plaintiffs’ attorneys’ chief weapon — the class action. The result? Courts deny class certification and defendants escape enforcement by highlighting the differences among those affected by their misconduct. At the other end of the regulatory spectrum lies the opposite problem. Some defendants’ actions are so egregious that hordes of public and private regulators can’t help but get involved — …

Constitutional Remedies: Reconciling Official Immunity With The Vindication Of Rights, Michael L. Wells

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Part I makes the crucial point that compensation is a tool and not a distinct goal of tort liability. With civil recourse theory as a guidepost, Part II argues that one of the aims of constitutional tort law is vindication of the plaintiffs rights. Civil recourse principles teach that vindication may be at least partly achieved even when immunity blocks compensation. Part III shows how the Court's failure to distinguish vindication from compensation has unnecessarily impeded the vindication of rights. Two important official immunity cases-Camreta v. Greene and Pearson v. Callahan -illustrate the missed opportunities and show how …

Reasonable Precaution For The Individual, Dov Waisman

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Article has four parts. In Part I, I introduce the question to be explored and describe Barbara Fried's challenge to any attempt to answer that question without summing costs and benefits across persons. Part II responds directly to Fried's challenge, presenting the individualized feasibility principle as a viable, nonaggregative interpretation of reasonable precaution. In Part III, I explore the theoretical underpinnings of the IFP, drawing on a theory of normative ethics known as ex ante contractualism. Part IV concludes.