Category Archives: Personal Injuries
Stephen Bailey, ‘The limits of Fairchild: scientific impossibility’
PRINCIPLES It is clear law that, to establish causation in fact in a tort case, it must normally be shown that the defendant’s wrongful act or omission played a necessary part in bringing about the harm (commonly loss or damage, sometimes invasion of a protected right). The most significant exception comprises cases where it is […]
Douglas Brodie, ‘Stress at work: contemporary expectations and common law hurdles’
INTRODUCTION As is well known, an employer’s liability in negligence for psychiatric harm is limited by the guidelines set out by the Court of Appeal in Hatton v Sutherland (Hatton) and approved by the House of Lords in Barber v Somerset (Barber). It is though worth highlighting that Hatton is now 25 years old and […]
Thomas Galligan, ‘Death in Admiralty’
ABSTRACT This is an article about legal history: the development of the law governing recovery for wrongful death in American admiralty law. Simultaneously, because the discussion spans the time period from 1865 to the present, it is a piece about the current state of the law. But it is also a lament. It is a […]
Kyle Bradley, ‘Reviving the Medical Monitoring Class Action’
ABSTRACT The class action was designed to provide peace to a group of wronged plaintiffs with similar claims. When individuals are harmed by toxic exposure but have yet to manifest an injury, those persons often want justice in the form of a simple remedy: medical monitoring. Medical monitoring is unique in that it enables both […]
Northon Salomão De Oliveira, ‘Medical Malpractice, Artificial Intelligence and Physician Liability: Who Is Responsible for AI-Assisted Medical Errors?’
ABSTRACT Clinical artificial intelligence has moved from pilot deployment to routine use in radiology, pathology, triage, and diagnostic support, yet malpractice doctrine still asks a single question designed for a single actor: did the treating physician breach the standard of care of a reasonably prudent practitioner? This article argues that the persistence of that question, […]
Call for proposals to present: Australian and New Zealand Tort and Compensation Researchers and Teachers Network Symposium: University of Sydney and Online, 15-16 February 2027
We welcome contributions which reflect a wide range of topics and approaches including doctrinal, theoretical, critical, empirical, reform and social justice, and pedagogical. We are particularly interested in providing opportunities for early career researchers and teachers to present their work and network with other colleagues … (more)
‘Gaming the Standard’
Ani B Satz and Liza Vertinsky, ‘Customary Corruption’, 66 William and Mary Law Review 693 (2025). The professional standard for medical malpractice, traditionally set by custom, has come under scrutiny. The most common concern is that custom may not reflect actual best practices, and health care providers may be reluctant to adopt those newer, better […]
Tujjar, Ientile and Toppetti, ‘After the AI Liability Directive: Civil Liability for Healthcare AI and the Limits of EU Risk Regulation’
ABSTRACT Following the withdrawal of the proposed AI Liability Directive in 2025, claims concerning harm caused by healthcare AI continue to be addressed through product liability, national medical liability and sectoral regulation. This article analyses that architecture through three deployment archetypes, a CE-marked radiology triage tool, a machine-learning deterioration score and an ambient clinical scribe, […]
Travis Gilly, ‘The Wrong Verb: Etiological Framing and the AI Psychosis Litigation’
ABSTRACT Seven product liability actions filed against OpenAI in California in November 2025 allege that a chatbot caused psychotic episodes in their users. The peer-reviewed clinical literature on which those claims must ultimately rest does not use that verb. Across research groups at UCSF, Aarhus, the Université de Montréal, and UCLA, investigators describe AI as […]
Ethan Seidenberg, ‘Accountability Without Damages: Social Insurance, Tort Law, and Interpersonal Justice’
ABSTRACT This Article advances a novel theory of social insurance capable of explaining the moral function of this system and its relation to tort law. For half a century, tort theory has been organized around two questions: What is tort law for, and what should the institution look like? The proposal to replace tort law […]