TortsProf Blog

Popper's "Tort Reform" in Text Format

Earlier Andrew Popper's "Tort Reform" book received publicity both here at TortsProf (Sheila) and at the VC(Todd Zywicki).  West has now announced that it will be available not only in electronic format (as originally advertised), but also as a traditional text (in paperback).  It will be available in time for the fall semester.

--CJR

Gender, Race, and Tort Law

In less than two weeks, The Measure of Injury:  Race, Gender, and Tort Law,  the new book by Martha Chamallas (Ohio State) and Jenny Wriggins (Maine), will be available from NYU Press. 

At Law & Society in Chicago next week, there will be an "Author Meets Readers" panel on the book.  Scheduled for Friday, May 28 from 4:30-6:15 at the Renaissance Hotel, the panel will be chaired by Anne Bloom (University of the Pacific).  Readers are:  Julie Davies (University of the Pacific), Lisa Pruitt (California, Davis), Catharine Wells (Boston College), and me. 

--CJR

"Kings of Torts" (aka The Dickie Scruggs Story)

In yesterday's Clarion Ledger, Sid Salter reviewed "Kings of Tort" by Alan Lange and Tom Dawson.   The book tells the story of Dickie Scruggs's fall from grace in the bribery scandal that led to his current address in federal prison.

As an aside, I know nothing about copyright law, but I am surprised that the book title is so similar to John Grishama's popular novel "The King of Torts."

UPDATE:   Readers might also be interested in "The King and the Dean:  Melvin Belli, Roscoe Pound, and the Common Law Nation," which is chapter four in Patriots and Cosmopolitans: Hidden Histories of American Law by John Witt (Yale). 

- SBS

OT: The Legal Limit by Martin Clark

Ah, summer!  The scholarship, the sun, the books!  I just read a terrific book I want to recommend to our readers:  Martin Clark's The Legal Limit.  The book has been out for a year, and is now available in paperback.

I begin with caveats.  First, Random House sent me a copy of this book; I assume the company wanted me to do exactly what I'm doing.  I'm okay with that because I'm disclosing it, and, more importantly, I love the book.  Second, the book is set in rural Stuart, Virginia, about 40 miles from where I grew up in Hillsville, Virginia.  The thrill I get in seeing places like Pandowdy's Restaurant in Mt. Airy, North Carolina factor into the plot of a novel from a major publishing house may not be shared by all.

Without giving away too much of the plot, the book follows two brothers who are victims of an abusive childhood:  Gates and Mason Hunt.  Gates, the older brother, falls into dealing drugs and sponging off his mother.  By contrast, Mason goes on to law school, and, eventually, becomes the Commonwealth's Attorney of Patrick County (of which Stuart is the county seat).  However, the brothers have kept a secret that threatens everything Mason has worked to achieve.

The book is both entertaining and enlightening.  The plot is gripping, and Clark does a superb job with character development (but, hey, every novel can't have a TortsProf as action hero!).  I can attest that he evocatively conveys the atmosphere of a small town in Virginia in the 1980's.  Additionally, the book raises questions about the relationship between law and justice, and the proper place for loyalty in both.

Martin Clark is a circuit court judge seated in Stuart, and the author of two previous, well-received novels:  The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living (love the title!) and Plain Heathen Mischief.  Writing fiction is challenging (my mother writes), and the fact Judge Clark can do it well on top of his day job is impressive. 

--CJR

Torts Texts

Legal publishers are experimenting with a new "Looseleaf" format.  The text will be printed, but not bound.  Students will be able to purchase a binder to insert the pages of the text.  I'm excited about this for two reasons.  First, it will save our students a lot of money.  The traditional text typically costs between $110-150.  Looseleaf costs will be about 35-40% of that amount.  Second, it will allow them (and us!) to carry only the small, relevant, relatively weightless portion of text.

I received an e-mail from Aspen yesterday stating that The Torts Process by Henderson, Pearson, Kysar, & Siliciano is now available in looseleaf (looseleaf ISBN:  978-0-7355-8888-2).  It would appear that this is a change in marketing strategy, so perhaps we can expect looseleaf versions for other popular Aspen Torts titles.  At Lexis, three Torts titles are available in looseleaf format:  Tort Law:  Cases, Perspectives, and Problems by Galligan, Haddon, Maraist, McClellan, Rustad, Terry, & Wildman (looseleaf ISBN:   9781422425985); Torts:  Cases, Problems, and Exercises by Weaver, Bauman, Cross, Klein, Martin, & Zwier (looseleaf ISBN:  ISBN 9781422472682) ; and Tort Law and Practice by Vetri, Levine, Vogel, & Finley (looseleaf ISBN:  9781422418321). 

On a related note, Carolina Academic Press has just announced a forthcoming (August 2009) fourth edition of Studies in American Tort Law by Johnson & Gunn.

--CJR

"Prosser on Torts" in Pop Culture

 And now for something completely different.  The end of classes finds me in a somewhat mellow mood, focusing on the lighter side of torts.  In that vein, I'm curious about the number of references to Prosser on Torts in pop culture. 

For instance:

•  In the 1991 movie "Doc Hollywood," Michael J. Fox's character encounters Julie Warner's character in a diner in fictional Grady, South Carolina.  She is interested in eventually going to law school, and she's reading the famous tome. 
• In Lisa Scottoline's 2006 novel, Dirty Blonde, on page 335, the main character is unpacking books in her judicial chambers.  One of the books is, again, the famous tome.  The heroine clearly had good taste in law classes:  "Cate unpacked another book, Prosser on Torts.  She had loved that class."  (Thanks to my colleague Kathy Jones for the tip.)
• During the 2008 campaign, Prosser on Torts made an appearance on the website Things Younger than John McCain here. 

Am I missing any?

--CJR