Category Archives: Products liability
Abraham and Rabin, ‘Automated Vehicles and Manufacturer Responsibility for Accidents: A New Legal Regime for a New Era’
Abstract The United States is on the verge of a new era in transportation, requiring a new legal regime. Over the coming decades, there will be a revolution in driving, as manually-driven cars are replaced by automated vehicles. There will then be a radically new world of auto accidents: most accidents will be caused by […]
Antonio Davola, ‘A Model for Tort Liability in a World of Driverless Cars: Establishing a Framework for the Upcoming Technology’
Abstract The development of driving support and cruise assist systems in the automotive industry has been astonishing, accelerating dramatically in the last ten years: since the first DARPA Urban Challenge field tests have multiplied in the US – in California alone, there are currently 39 companies testing self-driving cars – and the once remote prospect […]
Bryant Smith, ‘Automated Driving and Product Liability’
Abstract: This Article focuses on one cyberphysical domain – automated driving – to methodically analyze the so-called liability problem. It considers how automated driving could affect product liability, how product liability could affect automated driving, and how each could advance or impede the prevention of injury and the compensation of victims. Smith, Bryant Walker, Automated […]
‘Sweeping Connecticut Supreme Court Decision Refines Existing Tort Law’
“In arguably the most important Connecticut tort-law decision in decades, the Connecticut Supreme Court in Bifolck v Philip Morris, Inc, — A.3d —, 2016 WL 7509118 (Conn Dec 29, 2016), declined to adopt the approach of the Restatement (Third) to product liability design-defect claims and ‘reaffirm[ed] its allegiance’ to a ‘true strict liability’ standard under […]
Sheila Scheuerman, ‘Against Liability for Private Risk-Exposure’
Abstract: Can a plaintiff who has not yet suffered an injury sue based on the risk of future harm? After decades of addressing whether these “no injury” or “unmanifested defect” suits are cognizable, courts today are intractably divided. This conflict has created incentives for forum-shopping as plaintiffs search for a jurisdiction friendly to “no injury” […]
Theodore Eisenberg, ‘The Empirical Effects of Tort Reform’
Abstract: Tort reforms enacted in response to asserted crises date back to the 1970s and have emphasized the highly visible areas of punitive damages, medical malpractice, and products liability. Little evidence exists that reform of punitive damages affected the ratio between punitive and compensatory damages. This is consistent with the absence of evidence that punitive […]
Marshall Shapo, ‘An Essay on Torts: States of Argument’
Abstract: This essay summarizes high points in torts scholarship and case law over a period of two generations, highlighting the “states of argument” that have characterized tort law over that period. It intertwines doctrine and policy. Its doctrinal features include the traditional spectrum of tort liability, the duty question, problems of proof, and the relative […]
Martin Kotler, ‘Tort Reform and Implied Conflict Preemption’
Abstract: Almost twenty years ago, the Supreme Court erred in equating state products law with other forms of state regulation of potentially dangerous products. From there, it was only a short step to declare that the common – law imposition of liability could conflict with, and thus be preempted by, federal regulatory policy. At the […]
Bryant Smith, ‘Automated Driving and Product Liability’
Abstract: This Article focuses on one cyberphysical domain – automated driving – to methodically analyze the so-called liability problem. It considers how automated driving could affect product liability, how product liability could affect automated driving, and how each could advance or impede the prevention of injury and the compensation of victims. Smith, Bryant Walker, Automated […]
‘Sweeping Connecticut Supreme Court Decision Refines Existing Tort Law’
“In arguably the most important Connecticut tort-law decision in decades, the Connecticut Supreme Court in Bifolck v Philip Morris, Inc, — A.3d —, 2016 WL 7509118 (Conn Dec 29, 2016), declined to adopt the approach of the Restatement (Third) to product liability design-defect claims and ‘reaffirm[ed] its allegiance’ to a ‘true strict liability’ standard under […]