Torts Commons^™

A “Paucity Of Details”: S.J. Crane And The Baseball Rule, Robert Jarvis

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Flying Baseballs, Injured Fans, Uncertain Liability: Why Legislative Action Is Needed In The Sunshine State, Robert Jarvis

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Research Tip: Solving A Baseball Law Mystery: Unusual Databases For Lawyers, Robert Jarvis

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Let’S Be Reasonable: The Consumer Expectations Test Is Simply Not Viable To Determine Design Defect For Complex Autonomous Vehicle Technology, Emily Frascaroli, John Isaac Southerland, Elizabeth Davis, Woods Parker

Journal of Law and Mobility

Although highly automated vehicles (“HAVs”) have potential to reduce deaths and injuries from traffic crashes, product liability litigation for design defects in vehicles incorporating autonomous technology is inevitable. During the early stages of implementation, courts and juries will be forced to grapple with the application of traditional product liability principles to a never before experienced category of highly technical products. Recent decisions limiting the use of the consumer expectations test in cases involving complex products prompted the authors to examine more closely the history behind and the future viability of the consumer expectations test in HAV litigation.

Torts Without Names, New Torts, And The Future Of Liability For Intangible Harm, Kenneth S. Abraham, G. Edward White

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Black Box For Patient Safety?, Nathan Cortez

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Technology now makes it possible to record surgical procedures with striking granularity. And new methods of artificial intelligence (A.I.) and machine learning allow data from surgeries to be used to identify and predict errors. These technologies are now being deployed, on a research basis, in hospitals around the world, including in U.S. hospitals. This Article evaluates whether such recordings – and whether subsequent software analyses of such recordings – are discoverable and admissible in U.S. courts in medical malpractice actions. I then argue for reformulating traditional "information policy" to accommodate the use of these new technologies without losing sight of …

When Ais Outperform Doctors: Confronting The Challenges Of A Tort-Induced Over-Reliance On Machine Learning, A. Michael Froomkin, Ian Kerr, Joelle Pineau

Articles

Someday, perhaps soon, diagnostics generated by machine learning (ML) will have demonstrably better success rates than those generated by human doctors. What will the dominance of ML diagnostics mean for medical malpractice law, for the future of medical service provision, for the demand for certain kinds of doctors, and in the long run for the quality of medical diagnostics itself?

This Article argues that once ML diagnosticians, such as those based on neural networks, are shown to be superior, existing medical malpractice law will require superior ML-generated medical diagnostics as the standard of care in clinical settings. Further, unless implemented …

Ventura V. Kyle And American Sniper; The Anatomy Of A Public Figure’S Lawsuit, Michael K. Steenson

Faculty Scholarship

Chris Kyle's book, American Sniper, detailed his exploits as a prolific Navy SEAL sniper. In a book subchapter Kyle detailed an encounter with a "Mr. Scruff Face" in a San Diego Bar. The book states that Ventura made certain statements that were demeaning of the United States and the Navy SEALS. Scruff Face was subsequently identified by Chris Kyle as Jesse Ventura, former governor of Minnesota. Ventura sued Chris Kyle for defamation, appropriation, and unjust enrichment. Relying on trial court documents, briefs, and the opinions in the case, this article probes those theories of recovery with an emphasis on the …

Qualified Immunity And Constitutional Structure, Katherine Mims Crocker

Michigan Law Review

A range of scholars has subjected qualified immunity to a wave of criticism— and for good reasons. But the Supreme Court continues to apply the doctrine in ever more aggressive ways. By advancing two claims, this Article seeks to make some sense of this conflict and to suggest some thoughts toward a resolution.

First, while the Court has offered and scholars have rejected several rationales for the doctrine, layering in an account grounded in structural constitutional concerns provides a historically richer and analytically thicker understanding of the current qualified-immunity regime. For suits against federal officials, qualified immunity acts as a …

Dust In The Wind: Revisiting Georgia’S Refusal To Extend Liability To Employers In Take-Home Asbestos Litigation, Phillips Workman

Georgia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Modern-Day Pirates: Why Domestic Parent Corporations Should Be Liable Under The Alien Tort Statute For Violations Of Workers' Rights Within Global Supply Chains, Erin Downey

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Products Liability In The Digital Age: Liability Of Commercial Sellers Of Cad Files For Injuries Committed With A 3d-Printed Gun, Mika Sharpe

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why Police Should Protect Complainant Autonomy, Randall K. Johnson

Faculty Works

This Essay does its work in, at least, three ways. First, it encourages better use of scarce public sector resources by calling for reform of the police complaint intake process. Next, this Essay identifies the causes of police complaint inefficiencies by critically-assessing how intake is done by the Chicago Police Department (CPD). Lastly, it provides guidance about how to achieve CPD intake reform by better protecting complainant autonomy. Complainant autonomy, at least in this Essay, is defined as a real party in interest’s (i.e. an injured citizen’s) right to control how its allegations are framed by a nominal plaintiff (i.e. …

2018 Survey Of Rhode Island Case Law

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Drawing Trump Naked: Curbing The Right Of Publicity To Protect Public Discourse, Thomas E. Kadri

Articles

From Donald Trump to Lindsay Lohan to Manuel Noriega, real people who are portrayed in expressive works are increasingly targeting creators of those works for allegedly violating their "right of publicity "-a state-law tort that prohibits the unauthorized use of a person's name, likeness, and other identifying characteristics. Intuitively, we might feel confident that Mark Zuckerberg should not be able to block his portrayal in The Social Network movie, that Marilyn Monroe could not have stopped Andy Warhol from exhibiting his vibrant paintings, that O.J. Simpson could not have demanded money from FX to air the American Crime Story docudrama. …

The Puzzle Of The Dignitary Torts, Kenneth S. Abraham, Edward White

Cornell Law Review

In recent years, there has been much greater legal attention paid to aspects of dignity that have previously been ignored or treated with actual hostility, especially in constitutional law and public law generally. But private law also plays an important role. In particular, certain forms of tort liability are imposed in order to protect individual dignity of various sorts and compensate for invasions of individual dignity. Defamation, invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and even false imprisonment fall into this category. Despite the growing importance of dignity, this value has received very little self-conscious or express attention in …

The Deterrence Case For Comprehensive Automaker Enterprise Liability, Kyle D. Logue

Journal of Law and Mobility

This Article lays out the potential (at this point purely theoretical) deterrence benefits of replacing our current auto tort regime (including auto products liability law, driver-based negligence claims, and auto no-fault regimes) with a single, comprehensive automaker enterprise liability system. This new regime would apply not only to Level 5 vehicles, but to all automobiles made and sold to be driven on public roads. Because such a system would make automakers unconditionally responsible for the economic losses resulting from any crashes of their vehicles, it would in effect make automakers into auto insurers as well, although such a change will …

Fenrich V. The Blake School And Minnesota Tort Law: A Road Map Through Special Relationships, Misfeasance/Nonfeasance, And Duty, Mike K. Steenson

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Whose Market Is It Anyway? A Philosophy And Law Critique Of The Supreme Court’S Free-Speech Absolutism, Spencer Bradley

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In the wake of Charlottesville, the rise of the alt-right, and campus controversies, the First Amendment has fallen into public scrutiny. Historically, the First Amendment’s “marketplace of ideas” has been a driving source of American political identity; since Brandenburg v. Ohio, the First Amendment protects all speech from government interference unless it causes incitement. The marketplace of ideas allows for the good and the bad ideas to enter American society and ultimately allows the people to decide their own course.

Yet, is the First Amendment truly a tool of social progress? Initially, the First Amendment curtailed war-time dissidents and …

Drone Invasion: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles And The Right To Privacy, Rebecca L. Scharf

Scholarly Works

Since the birth of the concept of a legally-recognized right to privacy in Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis’ influential 1890 law review article, The Right to Privacy, common law – with the aid of influential scholars -- has massaged the concept of privacy torts into actionable claims. But now, one of the most innovative technological advancements in recent years, the unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone, has created difficult challenges for plaintiffs and courts navigating common law privacy tort claims.

This Article explores the challenges of prosecution of the specific privacy tort of intrusion into seclusion involving non-governmental use …