Category Archives: Tort
Tom Baker, ‘Where’s the Insurance in Mass Tort Litigation?’
ABSTRACT This article reports and explains four key findings about the difference between the role of insurance in mass tort litigation and the role of insurance in ordinary tort and corporate governance litigation as reported in earlier research: (1) outside of the insolvency context, mass tort plaintiff lawyers do not build their litigation and settlement […]
Hilyard Nichols, ‘The First Byte Rule: A Proposal for Liability of Artificial Intelligences’
ABSTRACT Artificial Intelligences (AIs) are a relatively new addition to human civilization. From delivery robots to board game champions, researchers and businesses have found a variety of ways to apply this new technology. As it continues to grow and become more prevalent though, so do its interactions with society at large. This will create benefits […]
Hin Liu, ‘Interference Torts in the Digital Asset World’
ABSTRACT Cases across the common law world have recognised digital assets as property, but the question of how such rights should be protected against interferences remains contested. At present, the ‘chattel torts’ (conversion, trespass and reversionary injury) do not cover digital assets, leaving a gap in protection in respect of digital assets. There have been […]
Jane Yakowitz Bambauer, ‘Negligent AI Speech: Some Thoughts About Duty’
ABSTRACT Careless speech has always existed on a very large scale. When people talk, they often give bad advice or wrong information, and occasionally this leads the listener to act in a way that causes physical harm. The scale was made more visible by the public Internet as the musings and conversations of billions of […]
Koopman and Widen, ‘Liability Rules for Automated Vehicles: Definitions and Details’
ABSTRACT This paper explains how the law ought to attribute and allocate liability for accidents involving automated vehicles. We advocate for the creation of the legal fiction of a ‘Computer Driver’ and allow a court or jury to attribute ordinary negligence liability to the Computer Driver anytime a court or jury determines that the Computer […]
Timothy Lytton, ‘Tort Claims for the Coverup of Child Sexual Abuse: Private Litigation, Corporate Accountability, and Institutional Reform’
Tort claims for the coverup of child sexual abuse exemplify the use of civil litigation as an effective response to serious corporate misconduct. This Article analyzes how tort claims against Catholic dioceses, the Boy Scouts of America, and USA Gymnastics empowered child sexual abuse survivors to hold powerful institutional leaders accountable for covering up and […]
Alexandra Lahav, ‘Crime and Tort: Reflections on Legal Categories’
ABSTRACT This Essay investigates how a particular category of torts – suits for injuries caused by dangerous products – has been seen alternatively as based in contact or criminal law – in addition to, or sometimes instead of, an independent doctrine sounding in tort that arises from a duty not to harm others. This category […]
Maximillian Scott Matiauda, ‘Rising Tide: The Second Wave of Climate Torts’
ABSTRACT Fossil fuels and tobacco products share startling similarities. Both enjoy ubiquity, enable their users to keep pace with the ever-increasing demands of civilization, and choke the life out of those who partake and those who merely look on. The comparison extends to legal battles against their respective industries, as evidenced by a new wave […]
Wendy Wagner, ‘When a Corporation’s Deliberate Ignorance Causes Harm: Charting a New Role for Tort Law’
ABSTRACT Many corporations have successfully postponed or reduced their legal responsibility for public harms by controlling the scientific research that informs liability. In the biomedical field in particular, academics have reconstructed a veritable playbook of strategies that corporations have used to manipulate the scientific record documenting the hazardousness of their activities. By controlling what is […]
Sara Golru, ‘Judging the Genome: Using Genetic Evidence to Support or Refute Causation’
ABSTRACT This article explores the increasingly important role that genetic evidence is playing in toxic tort litigation, and indeed personal injury litigation more broadly, with reference to recent case law in both Australia and the United States. Genetic information can provide valuable evidence to support or dispute causation by showing genetic changes indicating a plaintiff’s […]