Torts Commons^™

Taxing Punitive Damages, Gregg D. Polsky, Dan Markel

Scholarly Works

There is a curious anomaly in the law of punitive damages. Jurors assess punitive damages in the amount that they believe will best “punish” the defendant. But, in fact, defendants are not always punished to the degree that the jury intends. Under the Internal Revenue Code, punitive damages paid by business defendants are tax deductible and, as a result, these defendants often pay (in real dollars) far less than the jury believes they deserve to pay.

To solve this problem of under-punishment, many scholars and policymakers, including President Obama, have proposed making punitive damages nondeductible in all cases. In our …

"What Do I Do About This Word, 'Unavoidable'?": Resolving Textual Ambiguity In The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, Jason Lafond

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The quote in the title of this Essay comes from Justice Breyer, expressing his frustration with the language of section 22(b)(1) of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. Justice Breyer made this comment during the October 12, 2010, oral argument in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, Inc., a case about the availability of state tort claims based on vaccine design defects. The question before the Court was whether that section expressly preempts such claims against vaccine manufacturers "if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions …

The Duty Paradox: Getting It Right After A Decade Of Litigation Involving The Risk Of Student Suicide, Daryl J. Lapp

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Carmel Haifa Hospital V. Malul (Summary), Eliezer Rivlin, Edmond E. Levy, Dorit Beinisch, Asher Grunis, Ayala Procaccia, Miriam Naor, Salim Joubran, Elyakim Rubinstein, Edna Arbel

Translated Opinions

Facts: The first respondent was born with multiple defects. She was delivered through a Caesarean section performed on her mother, the second respondent. The trial court found that the appellant hospital had negligently delayed the surgery, but there was no certainty as to whether the respondent’s defects were caused by her premature birth (for which the appellants were not at fault) or by the delay in her mother’s medical treatment (a result of the first appellant’s negligence). The lower court awarded the respondents compensation in the amount of 40% of the full damages amount and an appeal was brought to …

Summary Of Boorman V. Nevada Memorial Cremation Society And Clark County Coroner’S Office, 126 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 29, David Krawczyk

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

No abstract provided.

Re-Examining Acts Of God, Jill M. Fraley

Scholarly Articles

For more than three centuries, tort law has included the notion of an act of God as something caused naturally, beyond both man's anticipation and control. Historically, the doctrine applied to extraordinary manifestations of the forces of nature, including floods, earthquakes, blizzards, and hurricanes. Despite the significance of the doctrine, particularly in large-scale disasters, scholars rarely engage the act of God defense critically. However, recently, the doctrine has received more substantial criticism. Denis Binder argued that the doctrine should be repudiated as merely a restatement of existing negligence principles Joel Eagle criticized the doctrine, suggesting that it should not exclude …

Summary Of Renown Health, Inc. V. Vanderford, 126 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 24, Kristopher Milicevic

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Appeal from a district court’s interlocutory order granting partial summary judgment to Vanderford based on the imposition of a nondelegable duty on Renown Health, Inc. The question on appeal was whether a hospital owes an absolute nondelegable duty to provide competent medical care to emergency room patients through independent contractor doctors.

Responsibility In Negligence: Why The Duty Of Care Is Not A Duty “To Try”, Ori J. Herstein

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Even though it offers a compelling account of the responsibility-component in the negligence standard—arguably the Holy Grail of negligence theory—it is a mistake to conceive of the duty of care in negligence as a duty to try to avert harm. My goal here is to explain why and to point to an alternative account of the responsibility-component in negligence.

The flaws in conceiving of the duty of care as a duty to try are: failing to comport with the legal doctrine of negligence and failing as a revisionary account for the law; overly burdening autonomy and restricting the liberty of …

Bending Nature, Bending Law, David Owen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Chasing Reputation: The Argument For Differential Treatment Of Public Figures In Canadian Defamation Law, Bob Tarantino

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

When comparing the seminal Supreme Court of Canada defamation decisions of the 1990s and 2000s, it is apparent that the Court's view on the importance of protecting reputation has changed. Recent decisions hail the importance of using freedom of expression as a countervailing interest against the oft-criticized strictures of the common law of defamation. Fundamental alterations in the nature of mass and interactive media and in the nature of reputation are two phenomena informing this change. Increased attention to the theorizing of "reputation," the interest whose protection animates the entire tort of defamation, reveals that reputation is itself a highly …

The Story Of Us: Resolving The Face-Off Between Autobiographical Speech And Information Privacy, Sonja R. West

Scholarly Works

Increasingly more “ordinary” Americans are choosing to share their life experiences with a public audience. In doing so, however, they are revealing more than their own personal stories, they are exposing private information about others as well. The face-off between autobiographical speech and information privacy is coming to a head, and our legal system is not prepared to handle it.

In a prior article, I established that autobiographical speech is a unique and important category of speech that is at risk of being undervalued under current law. This article builds on my earlier work by addressing the emerging conflict between …

Summary Of Strickland V. Waymire, 126 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 25, Keith Pickard

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Appeal from a district court summary judgment ordering appellants’ recall elections to proceed based upon a reading of Article 2, Section 9 of the Nevada Constitution whereby any registered voter may sign the recall petition to reach the 25% numerical threshold. The Supreme Court unanimously held that only those voters who actually voted in the election which seated the officials may count toward the 25% threshold.

Material Contribution To Justice - Toxic Causation After Resurfice Corp. V. Hanke, Lynda M. Collins, Heather Mcleod-Kilmurray

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The vast universe of chemicals in the Canadian environment is presently understood only poorly by science. For many thousands of chemicals, important data regarding chronic toxicity are lacking. As a result, the requirement that the plaintiff in a negligence action prove causation of illness on a but-for standard has frequently been unattainable. In Resurfice Corp. v. Hanke, the Supreme Court of Canada articulated an important exception to the but-for test. In circumstances where but-for causation is unprovable due to limits in scientific knowledge, proof that a defendant materially contributed to the plaintiff's risk of incurring the type of injury that …

2009 Monsanto Lecture - Intent In Tort Law, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

This paper, prepared for the 2009 Monsanto Lecture in Tort Jurisprudence, explains intent standards in tort law on the basis of the incentive effects of tort liability rules. Intent rules serve a regulatory function by internalizing costs optimally. The intent standard for battery internalizes costs in a manner that discourages socially harmful acts and at the same time avoids discouraging socially beneficial activity. The intent standard for assault is more difficult to satisfy than that for battery because it is designed to provide a subsidy of a sort to the speech that is often intermixed with potentially threatening conduct. In …

Voices From The Field: An Inter-Professional Approach To Managing Critical Information

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Putting The Brakes On Libel Tourism: Examining The Effects Test As A Basis For Personal Jurisdiction Under New York's Libel Terrorism Protection Act, Michelle Feldman

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Tort Law, Kumaralingam Amirthalingam, Gary Kok Yew Chan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The three cases on conversion relate to the following issues: the distinction between the tort of conversion and the choice of remedy for purposes of determining the appropriate limitation period, the underlying rationale for conversion that is based essentially on possession of a chattel and finally, the question of whether a temporary certificate of entitlement for the purchase of a car in Singapore may be converted.

Coordinating Sanctions In Tort, Kyle D. Logue

Cardozo Law Review

This Article begins with the standard Law and Economics account of tort law as a regulatory tool or system of deterrence, that is, as a means of giving regulated parties the optimal ex ante incentives to minimize the costs of accidents. Building on this fairly standard (albeit not universally accepted) picture of tort law, the Article asks the question how tort law should adjust, if at all, to coordinate with already existing non-tort systems of regulation. Thus, if a particular activity is already subject to extensive agency-based regulation (whether in the form of command-and-control requirements or in the form of …

Summary Of Betsinger V. D.R. Horton, Inc., Et Al., 126 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 17, Mark Hesiak

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

An appeal and cross appeal from a jury verdict in favor of prospective home buyer who prevailed in a deceptive trade practice action against a home builder and its financing division.

Risk, Everyday Intutions, And The Institutional Value Of Tort Law, Govind C. Persad

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This Note offers a normative critique of cost-benefit analysis, one informed by deontological moral theory, in the context of the debate over whether tort litigation or a non-tort approach is the appropriate response to mass harm. The first Part argues that the difference between lay and expert intuitions about risk and harm often reflects a difference in normative judgments about the existing facts, rather than a difference in belief about what facts exist, which makes the lay intuitions more defensible. The second Part considers how tort has dealt with this divergence between lay and expert perspectives. It also evaluates how …