The Director’s Cut
When Your Doctor Breaks You
When people who have had profoundly serious wrongs inflicted on them sue, they are suing for money. But the fact is that they don’t want money. What they want, more than anything in the world, is a time machine. They want to be put back to one minute before their spouse was killed by the…
Read MoreTort Law, the Wall Street Journal, and the Urgent need for Public Education.
When even the Wall Street Journal says that “We Won’t See You in Court: The Era of Tort Lawsuits Is Waning,” you know that you’ve got a problem. In a recent front Page article the Wall Street Journal noted two completely incongruous facts: The number of lawsuits is dwindling, from 10 lawsuits per 1,000 people…
Read MoreBlack Lives matter! Blue lives matter! All lives matter!
In the past few years there has been much attention paid to controversial cases where police have used (or misused) force to subdue people, and the people have died, or been severely injured as a result. Are these cases of excessive force? Are the police themselves criminals? Should the police be liable for committing tortious…
Read MoreA history of dangerous devices
The American Association for Justice (AAJ) has just released a new report detailing how women have been disproportionately harmed by dangerous and unsafe drugs and medical devices: “FROM ACCUTANE TO ZONITE: A HISTORY OF DANGEROUS DRUGS & DEVICES MARKETED TO WOMEN,” It is a long, fascinating, and shocking story. Did you know, for example, that…
Read MoreCongressional Meddling in Civil Justice is Misguided and Dangerous
Nora Freeman Engstrom is a Professor of Law and the Associate Dean for Curriculum at Stanford Law School, where she writes and teaches about civil procedure, tort law, and legal ethics. This article initially appeared in the Stanford Law School Legal Aggregate. All eyes are on health care. We’re watching Congress take a hammer to the…
Read MoreRecalling Tom Lambert
RECALLING TOM LAMBERT Joseph A. Page* One would be hard-pressed to find a more apt exemplification for the term “a hard act to follow” than in the replacement of Roscoe Pound by Thomas F. Lambert, Jr. as Editor-in-Chief of the NACCA Law Journal in 1955. Pound was a giant who stood astride the landscape of…
Read MoreHidden Dangers in Cars
Automobiles have been closely tied to the law of torts for a century. There have been many automobile-related lawsuits, ranging from cases involving the operation of cars (who ran the stop sign?) to defects and dangers in the design and manufacture of the automobiles (and other motor vehicles) themselves. And because tort law is quality…
Read MoreImportance of Juries, pt 1
The right of trial by jury is one of the jewels of the American system of government. For hundreds of years the right of trial by jury has been seen as a check, not only on the power of government; but also on the influence of the wealthy and powerful, or in today’s parlance, the 1%.
Read MoreIn Defense of Lawsuits
For years the American Chamber of Commerce has waged a war against the civil justice system. It is, after all, no big secret that the American Chamber of Commerce hates trial lawyers, and tort law; hates, in fact, the very idea of a system which hold wrongdoers accountable for causing injury, harm, and death.
Read More’98 Tobacco Settlement
November 1998 marked a pivotal moment in the history of cigarettes in the United States. Forty-six states and the four largest tobacco companies reached a landmark settlement that brought sweeping changes to cigarette manufacturers’ practices—and to rates of smoking. Since the settlement, cigarette smoking rates in the United States have been cut nearly in half.
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