Category Archives: Products liability
Goldberg and Zipursky, ‘Opioid Litigation and the Law of Public Nuisance: A Preliminary Assessment’
ABSTRACT In recent years, states and cities have filed civil actions against manufacturers and distributors of prescription opioid medications seeking, among other things, reimbursement for the cost of treating individuals who suffer from addiction, overdoses, and related illnesses. In many respects, these suits have followed the pattern set by suits against tobacco companies, as well […]
Steven Van Uytsel, ‘Different Liability Regimes for Autonomous Vehicles: One Preferable Above the Other?’
ABSTRACT Autonomous vehicles are said to bring safety to the roads. Machines are expected not to make the same driving mistakes as humans. Indeed, machines will not drive intoxicated or get too tired to drive. However, the application of adversarial machine learning to autonomous vehicles has shown that the reaction of these vehicles to altered […]
‘The vaccine will be safe, but this legal contingency plan is necessary nonetheless’
“The development of what appear to be three effective vaccines against Covid-19 is excellent news. But every silver lining has a cloud, and there is no news so good that it does not cause lawyers to ask themselves about what happens if things go wrong. Vaccines are overwhelmingly safe. And before any vaccine is released […]
Margaret Williams, ‘An Empirical Evaluation of Proposed Civil Rules for Multidistrict Litigation’
ABSTRACT Recently the Civil Rules Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States began considering the need for specific rules related to multidistrict litigation (MDL) proceedings. The possibility of creating rules specifically for MDL has its origins in recent proposed legislation prompted by groups typically tied to the defense bar. One area under consideration […]
Nathan Schachtman, ‘Products Liability Law – Lessons from the Military and Industrial Contexts’
ABSTRACT The policy bases for American products liability law have developed largely through a series of state court cases that involved products sold to ordinary consumers. These cases featured significant disparities between manufacturers and injured consumers in understanding latent risks from product use, and in their ability to avoid the risks and to absorb and […]
Katherine Sheriff, ‘Surveying Liability Models for Autonomous Vehicle Technology’
ABSTRACT This article provides an overview of potential liability models as applied to autonomous vehicles. Uncertainty is rampant among courts, regulators, legislators, law enforcement and consumers when considering how to react to accidents involving autonomous vehicles – however unlikely. Uncertainty during a technological transition provides fertile ground to test the boundaries of the law and […]
Jean-Sébastien Borghetti, ‘Civil Liability for Artificial Intelligence: What Should its Basis Be?’
ABSTRACT While there has already been much discussion among lawyers about liability for artificial intelligence (AI), comparatively little attention has been devoted to the actual basis of such liability. It is often taken for granted that product liability will apply to AI, but such liability is based in all legal systems on the product’s defect, […]
Gerhard Wagner, ‘Robot, Inc: Personhood for Autonomous Systems?’
ABSTRACT To date, no legal system classifies robots or other autonomous systems as legal subjects, instead leaving them to share the classification of other artifacts: objects. This article examines whether the law should change and recognize robots and software agents as ‘ePersons’, capable of attracting and absorbing tort liability. It develops the concept of ‘liability […]
Marson, Ferris and Dickinson, ‘The Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 Part 1 and Beyond: A Critical Review’
ABSTRACT On 19 July 2018, the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 (AEVA) received Royal Assent. As motor vehicles are becoming increasingly technologically based, with driving aids having taken over many of the more mundane (and possibly dangerous) aspects of driving from the driver, it is imperative that legislation keeps pace to determine the responsibilities […]
John Harris, ‘The Immoral Machine’
ABSTRACT In a recent paper in Nature entitled ‘The Moral Machine Experiment’, Edmond Awad, et al make a number of breathtakingly reckless assumptions, both about the decisionmaking capacities of current so-called ‘autonomous vehicles’ and about the nature of morality and the law. Accepting their bizarre premise that the holy grail is to find out how […]