Torts Commons^™

Has Addy V. Jenkins, Inc. Heightened The Standard For Establishing A Reasonable Inference Of Proximate Cause In Maine?, Denitsa N. Pocheva-Smith

Maine Law Review

Suppose the following: A subcontractor is hired by a construction company to dry-wall the outside of a building. The general contractor provides and erects a three-story staging to assist the subcontractor during that process. The staging is installed before the subcontractor is scheduled to start work, but does not contain safety equipment, such as rails, platforms, or ladders, and is not tied to the building. The subcontractor begins work on the building on Monday. On that same day, he falls while ascending the staging. He reports the fall to the general contractor and asks that safety equipment be installed on …

"The Wrong Approach At The Wrong Time?": Maine Adopts Strict Liability For Abnormally Dangerous Activities In Dyer V. Maine Drilling And Blasting, Inc., Matthew M. Cobb

Maine Law Review

In 2009, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, held in Dyer v. Maine Drilling and Blasting, Inc. that strict liability should be applied to abnormally dangerous activities in accordance with the Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 519-20. In doing so, the court expressly overruled its decision in Reynolds v. W.H. Hinman Co., which had rejected a strict liability approach to blasting cases in favor of a negligence-based standard. In Dyer, a majority of the Law Court vacated the trial court’s grant of summary judgment for Maine Drilling and Blasting, Inc. (Maine Drilling) and held that strict …

Constitution Day Lecture: Constitutional Law And Tort Law: Injury, Race, Gender, And Equal Protection, Jennifer B. Wriggins

Maine Law Review

The focus of today’s annual Constitution Day lecture at the University of Maine School of Law is on the Fourteenth Amendment and specifically how the Equal Protection Clause relates to tort law. First, I will talk about the Equal Protection Clause in general—what it says, and some of what it has been held to mean—particularly where government makes distinctions based on race and gender. Second, I will discuss two historical tort cases that violate equal protection on the basis of race. In doing so, I uncover the racial history of tort law that has been hidden in plain sight. I …

Access To Prescription Drugs: A Normative Economic Approach To Pharmacist Conscience Clause Legislation, Joanna K. Sax

Maine Law Review

Over the past several years, many states introduced legislation that protects a pharmacist’s decision to refuse to fill a prescription. Termed “conscience clauses,” these pieces of legislation allow a pharmacist to refuse to fill a prescription because of moral or religious objections without fear of legal repercussions. In 2006, for example, twenty-one states considered legislation that permits pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions; some bills focus on contraception alone, while others are not specific to any one type of medication. Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, and South Dakota have state laws that provide legal protection to pharmacists who refuse to fill …

The Long-Arm's Inappropriate Embrace, Lynda Wray Black

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Arguably, the heart balm torts have outlived their relevance in a society where marriage is no longer a necessary imprimatur for intimate relations, and where broken hearts and failed marriages are the statistical norm. A state’s resolute rejection of the heart balm torts in principle as well as applied to modern domestic relations mores need be checked neither by Constitutional protections of marriage nor by the need for uniformity among sister states. Therefore, one state need not and must not transport its domestic relations public policy across state lines. Mississippi’s expansive jurisdictional embrace of nonresidents, John Daly and Anna …

Estate Of Fortier V. City Of Lewiston: Is Maine's Tort Claims Act Unintelligible?, William I. Olver

Maine Law Review

In Estate of Fortier v. City of Lewiston, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, was asked to decide if the City of Lewiston was “using” an aircraft under the Maine Tort Claims Act (MTCA) when it chartered a plane from Twin Cities Air Services (Twin Cities) as part of an Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corp (AFJROTC) exercise. Tragically, the pilot and three AFJROTC cadets from Lewiston High School lost their lives when the plane crashed into Barker Mountain shortly after take-off. The families of the students brought suit against Lewiston, in part, alleging negligence …

Humphries V. New York-New York Hotel & Casino, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 77 (Oct. 5, 2017), Emily Meibert

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

An innkeeper is liable under NRS 651.015 if an injured patron can show that they suffered foreseeable harm; foreseeability is established when the innkeeper fails to exercise due care for the safety of its patrons or if the innkeeper had notice or knowledge of prior incidents of similar acts on the premises. Notice or knowledge of prior incidents of similar acts is a case-by-case analysis, and requires the district court consider similar wrongful acts in terms of the location of the attack, level of violence, and implicated security concerns.

Tipping The Scales?: Maine Adopts The Continuing Negligent Treatment Doctrine In Baker V. Farrand, Michael P. Beers

Maine Law Review

In Baker v. Farrand, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, held that for a series of related negligent acts or omissions committed by a health care provider or practitioner, a single cause of action “accrues” under the Maine Health Security Act (hereinafter MHSA) on the date of the last act or omission that contributed to the plaintiff’s injury. Hence, in situations where a physician provides continuing negligent treatment to a patient in which each and every one of the physician’s actions are negligent, the MHSA’s three-year statute of limitations does not begin to run until the …

A Torahic Case Against Sjr8, Josh Burk

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Reasonable Investor Of Federal Securities Law, Amanda Rose

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Federal securities law defines the materiality of corporate disclosures by reference to the views of a hypothetical reasonable investor. For decades the reasonable investor standard has been a flashpoint for debate with critics complaining of the uncertainty it generates and defenders warning of the under-inclusiveness of bright-line alternatives. This Article attempts to shed fresh light on the issue by considering how the reasonable investor differs from its common law antecedent, the reasonable person of tort law. The differences identified suggest that the reasonable investor standard is more costly than tort laws reasonable person standard - the uncertainty it generates is …

The Information-Forcing Dilemma In Damages Law, Tun-Jen Chiang

William & Mary Law Review

Courts assessing compensatory damages awards often lack adequate information to determine the value of a victim’s loss. A central reason for this problem, which the literature has thus far overlooked, is that courts face a dilemma when applying their standard information-forcing tools to the context of damages. Specifically, the standard method by which courts obtain information is through a burden of proof. In the context of damages, this means a rule requiring plaintiffs to prove the value of a loss. But courts will often face a situation where a plaintiff can clearly prove the existence of a loss, yet cannot …

Human Torts, Lisa J. Laplante

Cardozo Law Review

Human Torts is the first article to describe how ordinary municipal tort lawsuits in the United States provide essential remedies for human rights abuses. Despite the rising level of hate crimes, bullying, corporate malfeasance, and other private acts that result in great harm and can lead to civil litigation, American scholars have never explored how everyday tort claims grounded in purely domestic common law doctrine between private, non-state actors are in fact human rights claims even if never pleaded as such in U.S. courts. Framing tort litigation as a form of human rights protection may appear to be a novel …

How A Class Action Plaintiff's Request For Attorney's Fees Can Prevent Mootness Despite A Defendant's Tender Of Damages, Lyuba Shamailova

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Your Bodies, Ourselves: Legal Protection Of Potential Human Life, Jeffery A. Parness

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Ford Motor Co. V. Trejo, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 68 (Sept. 27, 2017), Jeff Chronister

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court declined to adopt the risk-utility analysis. The consumer-expectation test is the appropriate standard for strict products liability claims in Nevada, and the risk-utility analysis is inappropriate because it inserts aspects of negligence into the test and unfairly burdens plaintiffs.

Lewis V. Clarke, Summer L. Carmack

Public Land & Resources Law Review

One manner in which Indian tribes exercise their inherent sovereignty is by asserting sovereign immunity. In Lewis v. Clarke, the Court decided that the sovereign immunity extended to instrumentalities of tribes did not further extend to tribal employees acting within the scope of their employment. The Court acknowledged the concerns of the lower court, namely, the possibility of setting a precedent allowing future plaintiffs to sidestep a tribe’s sovereign immunity by suing a tribal employee in his individual capacity. However, the Supreme Court ultimately felt that the immunity of tribal employees should not exceed the immunity extended to state …

Franchise Tax Bd. V. Hyatt, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 57 (Sept. 14, 2017), Carmen Gilbert

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court found that discretionary-function immunity does not apply to intentional bad-faith tort claims. The Court also expressly adopted the false light invasion of privacy right of action in order to fully protect privacy interests. The Court also adopted the sliding scale approach for evaluating IIED claims, holding that increased severity of conduct will require less evidence to prove emotional distress.

Mass Torts—Maturation Of Law And Practice, Paul D. Rheingold

Pace Law Review

Mass tort litigation has been with us for about fifty years. This is dating the start from the MER/29 litigation in 1964. This field of law and practice has grown year after year, and it shows no sign of abating. At the same time, it can be said that this area of law and procedure has reached a mature stage; the practice is fairly standardized and earlier experiments have either become the model or have been abandoned.

The term “mass tort litigation” (MTL), as used in this article, confines itself to product liability personal injury cases involving similar injuries from …

Tort Reform Through The Back Door: A Critique Of Law And Apologies, Yonathan A. Arbel, Kaplan, Yotam Kaplan, Yotam

Articles

In this Article, we show how the biggest tort reform of the last decade was passed through the back door with the blessing of its staunchest opponents. We argue that the widely-endorsed "apology law" reform-a change in the national legal landscape that privileged apologies-is, in fact, a mechanism of tort reform, used to limit victims' recovery and shield injurers from liability. While legal scholars overlooked this effect, commercial interests seized the opportunity and are in the process of transforming state and federal law with the unwitting support of the public.

Newsroom: Logan Quoted In Bloomberg News On Opiod Litigation 08-16-2017, Jef Feeley, Jared S. Hopkins

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.