Torts & Products Liability Law最新文献

{"title":"Safety for Whom? The Effects of Light Trucks on Traffic Fatalities","authors":"Michael L. Anderson","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1080911","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1080911","url":null,"abstract":"Light trucks have doubled their share of the vehicle fleet from 1980 to 2004. This paper examines the effects of this increase on traffic safety, combining estimates from a state-level panel data set with an accident-level micro-data set. The results suggest that a one-percentage point increase in light truck share raises annual traffic fatalities by 0.34%, or 143 deaths per year. Of this increase, approximately one-fifth accrue to the light trucks' own occupants, and the remaining four-fifths accrue to the occupants of other vehicles and pedestrians. Using standard value of life figures, the implied Pigovian tax is approximately 3850 dollars per light truck sold. Overall, light trucks pose a significant hazard to other users of the highway system but on average provide no additional protection to their own occupants.","PeriodicalId":168354,"journal":{"name":"Torts & Products Liability Law","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128069626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Due Process and Punitive Damages: An Economic Approach","authors":"Keith N. Hylton","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1020262","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1020262","url":null,"abstract":"This paper sets out a public choice (rent-seeking) theory of the Due Process Clause, which implies that the function of the clause is to prevent takings through the legislative or common law process. This view of the clause's function supports a preference for expanding rather than contracting the set of entitlements protected by the clause. The Supreme Court's application of due process reasoning in the punitive damages case law is in some respects consistent and in other respects inconsistent with this theory. For the most part, the Court has failed to develop a set of doctrines that would enable lower courts to distinguish takings from punishment consistent with reasonable regulation. This paper suggests general guidelines for developing such doctrines.","PeriodicalId":168354,"journal":{"name":"Torts & Products Liability Law","volume":"229 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114748868","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Optimal Agency Contracts: The Effect of Vicarious Liability and Judicial Error","authors":"A. Choi, Juan Carlos Bisso","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.894903","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.894903","url":null,"abstract":"Under the doctrine of vicarious liability, a deep-pocket principal is often held responsible for a third-party harm caused by a judgment-proof agent's negligence. We analyze the incentive contract used by the principal to control the agent's behavior when a court can make an error in determining the agent's negligence. We show that (1) reducing the error of declaring the agent not negligent even when he was (pro-defendant or type II error) is better than reducing the error of declaring the agent negligent even when he was not (pro-plaintiff or type I error) and (2) allowing the principal to penalize the agent even when the court declares the agent not negligent improves welfare. The latter supports the argument that causing an accident (or a reliable allegation of misconduct) should be sufficient to justify a just cause termination of an employee.","PeriodicalId":168354,"journal":{"name":"Torts & Products Liability Law","volume":"112 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123145645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mass Torts and the Incentives for Suit, Settlement, and Trial","authors":"A. Daughety, Jennifer F. Reinganum","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1009211","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1009211","url":null,"abstract":"We explore how the incentives of a plaintiff and her attorney, when considering filing suit and bargaining over settlement, can differ between those suits associated with stand-alone torts cases and those suits involving mass torts. We contrast \"individual-based liability determination\" (IBLD), wherein a clear description of the mechanism by which a defendant's actions translate into a plaintiff's harm is available, with \"population-based liability determination\" (PBLD), wherein cases rely upon the prevalence of harms in the population to persuade a judge or jury to draw an inference of causation or fault. We show that PBLD creates a positive externality for the plaintiff's side that is inherent in many mass tort settings; this externality induces an increased propensity to file suit, higher settlement demands and greater joint payoffs for plaintiffs and their attorneys. Consequently, the defendant in a PBLD case faces an increased ex ante expected cost compared with the IBLD regime, thereby increasing incentives to take care. However, PBLD need not always imply an increased likelihood of trial relative to IBLD for any filed case (though it may lead to more cases being filed); the heightened aggressiveness of the plaintiff and her attorney can actually lead to a reduction in the likelihood of trial. Thus, PBLD can be more, or less, efficient than IBLD (in the sense of reducing trial costs), when considering cases that would be filed in both possible regimes.","PeriodicalId":168354,"journal":{"name":"Torts & Products Liability Law","volume":"110 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127107640","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mental Health and Employment: Issues for Lawyers","authors":"J. Riley","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.993296","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.993296","url":null,"abstract":"Economic pressure and a hyper competitive work environment has intensified working hours and work stress across Australian business and industry - and perhaps no more acutely than in the professions. Lawyers - particularly those in private practice - know well that the stress induced by the tyranny of billable hours and client demands can induce or exacerbate mental ill-health. In this paper I would like to consider Dawson's proposition that a growing awareness of occupational stress . . . foreshadows an accelerating spiral of claims by workers for related injuries and diseases in the light of some very recent Australian case law dealing with common law claims for psychiatric harm suffered as a result of employment conditions. The two cases I propose to examine - Koehler v Cerebos (Australia) Ltd, (Koehler) and Nikolich v Goldman Sachs J B Were Services Pty Ltd (Nikolich) - tell a somewhat unsatisfying story about the potential for the common law to adequately address the very real problems that Dawson identified so long ago.","PeriodicalId":168354,"journal":{"name":"Torts & Products Liability Law","volume":"26 1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124309781","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Liability of Public Authorities in Cases of Non-Enforcement of Environmental Standards","authors":"Kars J de Graaf, J. Jans","doi":"10.58948/0738-6206.1064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.58948/0738-6206.1064","url":null,"abstract":"This paper will explore the possibility of using tort law based instruments for the enforcement of environmental standards. Not by using these instruments vis-a-vis those who are violating environmental standards (which could be regarded as a rather innovative approach to the subject), but vis-a-vis public authorities not taking sufficient enforcement action with respect to persons and undertakings who are primarily responsible for the environmental harm. Our main question therefore is, whether a non- or unsatisfactory enforcement of environmental law by public authorities can result in liability to pay damages based on general civil law.","PeriodicalId":168354,"journal":{"name":"Torts & Products Liability Law","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131311549","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Catching or Fining Speeders: A Political Economy Approach","authors":"E. Delhaye, Stef Proost, S. Rousseau","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1024668","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1024668","url":null,"abstract":"According to Becker (1968) it is best to use very high fines and low inspection probabilities to deter traffic accidents because inspection is costly. This paper uses a political economy model to analyse the choice of the fine and the inspection probability. There are two lobby groups: the vulnerable road users and the ‘strong’ road users. If only vulnerable road users are effective in lobbying, we find that the expected fine is higher than if only the interests of car drivers are taken into account. When we consider the choice between inspection probability and the magnitude of the fine for a given expected fine, we find that the fine preferred by the vulnerable road users is higher than socially optimal. The reverse holds if only the car drivers are effective lobbyists. The orders of magnitude are illustrated numerically for speeding and contrasted with current fines for drunk driving in the European Union.","PeriodicalId":168354,"journal":{"name":"Torts & Products Liability Law","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122513531","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Water Pollution and Judicial Response","authors":"Usha Antharvedi","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.955227","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.955227","url":null,"abstract":"Water Pollution is serious problem in the global world. Increasing population, urbanization, environmental degradation, changing agricultural sectors, etc., are some of the factors that are determining the future water demands. The global and regional environmental problems include loss of species and biodiversity, toxic chemicals and hazardous waste, ozone depletion, trans boundary air pollution and climate change. This paper discusses the constitutional provisions for the protection of environment and public health. The fundamental rights and Directive Principles of the State Policy are committed to protect and improve the environment. The concept of public interest litigation is discussed with different water pollution case laws. The paper briefly discusses the Water Act of 1974, and authorities under the Act for protecting and promoting cleanliness of streams and wells in the state. The Supreme Court under Article 32 and High Court under Article 226 are playing a great role for the protection of environmental degradation.","PeriodicalId":168354,"journal":{"name":"Torts & Products Liability Law","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129609449","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Regulation of Electroconvulsive Therapy","authors":"C. Sanger","doi":"10.2307/1287883","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/1287883","url":null,"abstract":"Regulation of ECT has generally focused on whether the patient or his representative effectively consented to the treatment. The highly intrusive nature of ECT and the unique circumstances of those patients who are likely to receive it create particularly difficult legal issues concerning the validity of the patient's consent. This Note will examine the various methods that are available to protect the rights of patients for whom ECT is proposed. After briefly explaining the nature of the therapy, the Note will discuss the efficacy of judicial remedies with respect to both competent and incompetent patients. It will argue that, because of the peculiar nature of ECT, special procedures that ensure the existence of consent to state-administered ECT may be constitutionally required. It will then address specific procedures legislatively enacted by several states for the regulation of ECT and will assess their constitutional limitations, with emphasis upon the problem that a regulatory scheme, in its effort to protect patients from unconsented therapy, may interfere with the right of patients to consent to privately administered ECT.","PeriodicalId":168354,"journal":{"name":"Torts & Products Liability Law","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114123059","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Strict Liability and the Mitigation of Moral Luck","authors":"Gregory C. Keating","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.923574","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.923574","url":null,"abstract":"The general problem of moral luck - that responsibility is profoundly affected by factors beyond the control of the person held responsible - has two distinct dimensions in the case of accidental injury (and no doubt in many other cases). One dimension is concerned with attribution of moral blame. Thomas Nagel explains: \"If one negligently leaves the bath running with the baby in it, one will realize, as one bounds up the stairs towards the bathroom, that if the baby has drowned one has done something awful, whereas if it has not one has merely been careless.\" How badly one has behaved and hence how much one should be blamed turns on consequences beyond one's control - on luck. The other dimension concerns the existence and extent of one's responsibility for having done harm, one's obligation to someone harmed to make amends for or repair the harm done. Someone who has been careless and lucky enough not to injure anyone has no such obligation. Someone who has been equally careless and inflicted a devastating injury may well have a ruinous obligation. In contrast to one another, the first of these dimensions seems distinctively more moral and the second distinctively more legal. The extent of the agent's culpability, the degree to which he or she should be blamed, strikes us as predominantly a matter of moral assessment. We are appraising a person, determining what sort of mark should be entered on the ledger of his life and character. The existence and extent of obligations of reparation, by contrast, strikes us as predominantly a matter of legal liability. We are settling the responsibility of an injurer to her victim. But it would be an error to draw too sharp a distinction between the moral and the legal. A legal judgment of negligence expresses criticism and disapproval of the conduct involved, and it is a mistake to purge that legal criticism of any moral dimension. So, too, the legal obligation to repair harm wrongly inflicted imposed by the tort law of negligence overlaps with a perceived moral obligation of the same kind, and is no doubt at least partially rooted in and justified by that perceived moral obligation. Because the moral and the legal interpenetrate in these ways, our judgments about the role that moral luck should play in on our assessments of the moral culpability of persons cannot be wholly divorced from our judgments about the role that moral luck should play in our assessment of the legal liability of persons. It is significant, then, that Thomas Nagel in one of the articles naming the problem of \"moral luck\" condemns strict liability as an \"irrational . . . moral position\" in contradistinction to negligence liability, which takes a defensible position on moral luck. Negligence liability is morally defensible because it holds people \"responsible for the contributions of fate as well as for their own - provided they have made some contribution to begin with.\" The comparative irrationality of strict liability, however, cann","PeriodicalId":168354,"journal":{"name":"Torts & Products Liability Law","volume":"62 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125907868","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}