Category Archives: Products liability
Marchant, ‘Swords and Shields: Impact of Private Standards in Technology-Based Liability’
ABSTRACT Private voluntary standards are playing an ever greater role in the governance of many emerging technologies, including autonomous vehicles. Government regulation has lagged due to the ‘pacing problem’ in which technology moves faster than government regulation, and regulators lack the first-hand information that is mostly in the hands of industry and other experts in […]
Robert Peck, ‘The Coming Connected-Products Liability Revolution’
ABSTRACT Technological innovation begets legal revolution. And tort law, as a creature of the common law, makes the most profound doctrinal leaps and does so more rapidly than any other area of law when technology changes our everyday lives to create new wrongs and demand remedies. History demonstrates tort’s unique ability to respond to the […]
W Bradley Wendel, ‘Malice or Snafu? Punitive Damages and Organizational Culture Defects’
ABSTRACT This paper was written for the annual Clifford Symposium on Tort Law and Policy at DePaul Law School. The theme for this year is tort law as a response to corporate wrongdoing. The paper was part of a panel on the Boeing 737-MAX disasters. In engineering or risk-management (not tort) terms, the root cause […]
Alexander Lemann, ‘The Duty to Warn in the Age of Automation’
ABSTRACT Autonomous vehicles are expected to drive far more safely than humans do, and yet they create novel risks of their own. This Article explores how the risks of autonomous vehicles should be communicated to those who buy and use them. In low-level automation systems, where drivers are required to monitor their cars’ driving, instructions […]
‘Case Preview: Hastings v Finsbury Orthopaedics Limited and Another’
“The appeal was heard by the UK Supreme Court on 28 April 2022. In this case, Mr Hastings appeals against the findings of the lower courts in Scotland that the metal-on-metal prosthesis used for his total hip replacement was not defective within the terms of the Consumer Protection Act 1987 …” (more) [Sophie Malley, UK […]
Marie Boyd, ‘Preemption and Gender and Racial (In)Equity: Why State Tort Law Is Needed In The Cosmetic Context’
ABSTRACT Much of the legal scholarship on the preemption of state tort law in the food and drug context and beyond has focused on issues of federalism. While the literature has considered the relationship between state tort law and the regulatory system, it has not generally explored the impact the federal preemption of state tort […]
Mihailis Diamantis, ‘Vicarious Liability for AI’
ABSTRACT When an algorithm harms someone – say by discriminating against her, exposing her personal data, or buying her stock using inside information – who should pay? If that harm is criminal, who deserves punishment? In ordinary cases, when A harms B, the first step in the liability analysis turns on what sort of thing […]
‘Does A Claim For A Defective Product Fall Within The Definition Of Public Liability Claims? A Judgment At First Instance’
“I am grateful to solicitor Gareth Edwards from Mooneerams, solicitors, for providing me a copy of the judgment of District Judge Vernon, sitting at Cardiff 17th March 2021, in the case of X (a Minor) v MPL Home & Senza Group Ltd. The judge considered the question of whether a defective product fell within the […]
Gary Klein, ‘In the Hands of the Maker: The Failure of Consumer Product Safety Oversight of Guns’
ABSTRACT Like automobiles, toasters and other consumer products, guns can sometimes have design or manufacturing flaws that lead to serious accidents. Gun accidents caused by gun defects can harm not just the users of the product, but others who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This article will examine the […]
Schwartz and Appel, ‘Where’s the Beef?: A Guide to Judges on Preemption of State Tort Litigation Involving Branded Drugs’
“… This Article examines the Court’s decision in Albrecht and new issues expected to arise as lower courts interpret it. The Article’s goal is to assist judges and others as to whether a branded drug manufacturer has made a sufficient showing, for preemption purposes, that the FDA’s action or inaction provides clear evidence that the […]