Common sense and the principles of tort law in the American civil justice system are not always synonymous.
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On June 20, 2011 a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision demonstrating the way in which the U.S. legal system continues to struggle with the digital revolution, a revolution that is undermining securities regulation, intellectual property law, and even the basics of tort law.
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It also suggests judges are finally beginning to accept that the radical remaking of tort law in the 1960s has raised costs for consumers without providing them much in return.
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The U.S. Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in a case that tests a philosophical question at the heart of modern tort law: If the cost of pursuing a lawsuit exceeds its value to an individual plaintiff, is that a bad thing?
Assuming it makes sense to create a workplace cause of action for intentionally inflicted emotional distress that does not meet the requirements of the common law tort, this bill, with its ill-defined and hopelessly broad restrictions on workplace conduct was not the measure to do it.
Reinvigorate the rule of law through tort reform and get the Federal Reserve on a rational track again, and the economy can still leap from strength to new strength.
For its principles, the fund drew on tort law, private and government insurance, and welfare, says George Priest, a professor at Yale Law School, but with no consistency and no cap on the amount paid other than Mr Feinberg's sense that Congress did not want a runaway programme.
That shoves the ever-spreading Gulf spill firmly out of what we know about traditional tort law and into the strange world of mass torts like asbestos, fen-phen and Vioxx.
The justices must decide whether a law known as the Alien Tort Statute permits US courts to rule on that case.
The dance Illinois courts are doing around these cases is puzzling since tort law in most parts of the country is clear on a few essential elements.
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So, that is one way tort law affects the cost of healthcare and we all pay for it.
Mazda presents one of the most contentious issues in tort law today: Whether jurors applying state-law concepts of liability can essentially write their own safety regulations for manufacturers.
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Given the lengths to which American tort law has been stretched in recent years, it is not hard to imagine distressed parents claiming that Microsoft was to blame for a paedophile preying on their daughter in its chatrooms.
But if they do, the Cochran ruling is available as a well-reasoned precedent and a model for how judges must respect basic tort law principles as proximate cause and the need for an actual injury.
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One possible new territory where preemption is not a big problem is litigation over environmental debacles. (Witness the recent extraction of money from gasoline refiners who damaged groundwater with a federally approved additive.) The tort mavens also talked about switching to securities law, a field not especially starving for practitioners.
Now the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a Pennsylvania judge was correct in allowing jurors to consider that evidence. (Thanks Abnormal Use for the tip.) The decision is interesting because it discusses not only the logical tension embedded in much modern products-liability law but the intellectual calisthenics federal judges must engage in when hearing a case based on state tort law.
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The central issue is whether federal regulation preempts state tort law.
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Two flagrant examples are in Ohio and Illinois, where the states' supreme courts nullified major legislative reforms of tort law.
No longer merely a vehicle for tort reform, the ILR is increasingly used to attack any law the Chamber dislikes.
The case requires the high court to determine whether the motor vehicle safety standards established by the federal government effectively preempt a products liability claim under state tort law.
Thus, as the Court announced the dawn of corporate criminal liability in Americawith an embrace of tort law, it simultaneously signaled to generations of prosecutors that arguments of necessity and public policy would, in the realm of corporate crime at least, carry great sway.
In many areas of life, Americans cheerfully accept that the law intrudes too much: they accept the case for tort reform, and they dislike self-important judges.
More formally, government can vigorously enforce laws against the use of force, fraud and criminal collusion, and use tort law to hold people liable for harm they cause others.
They are part of the law of respondeat superior and accepted as established principles in civil tort situations.
The tree trunks, exposed banks and other hazards whizzing past represent a cornucopia of potential tort suits under U.S. law, yet somehow the Swiss manage to operate these runs without being sued into oblivion.
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Recently, however, the specter of costly state tort litigation against vaccine manufacturers threatened to undermine this important federal law intended to shield manufacturers from such suits.
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The law under which Mr Karadzic has been sued is known as the Alien Tort Claims Act, originally a part of the Judiciary Act of 1789.
Birth control drugs, for example, "are very low-risk but attract a huge amount of litigation because people don't perceive the benefits to be as great, " says Edward Richards, a professor of tort law at Louisiana State University.
Tort lawyers and the advocacy group Public Citizen say there's nothing wrong with letting state law provide a second layer of protection for consumers.
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Shell, a Dutch corporation, argued that the law used to bring the company before a U.S. court, the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), should not apply.
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