TortsProf Blog

Congratulations to Dan Dobbs

Dan Dobbs (Arizona) is retiring after a full and influential career.  The Arizona Law website has a feature "In Celebration of Dan Dobbs."  Here is a sample:

Professor Dan B. Dobbs is retiring from Arizona Law in May, 2008. In five decades of writing, teaching, and practice, Dan B. Dobbs has helped shape the law of torts. He is the author of two leading treatises – The Law of Torts, and The Law of Remedies – and a coauthor of the treatise Prosser & Keeton on Torts. He has guided many casebooks to print, including five editions of Torts and Compensation Systems, the last three with co-author Paul T. Hayden. In addition, he has published more than thirty scholarly articles.

The full web page is here. 

--CJR

What the Best Law Teachers Do...Nominate Your Best Prof!

Conducting a follow-up to "What the Best College Teachers Do" by Ken Bain, Michael Schwartz (Washburn) is investigating what the best law teachers do.   He hopes to "identify the best law teachers in America," "synthesize the principles by which they teach," and "share these principles and stories of these wonderful teachers by documenting them in a book."  Indeed, Schwartz already has a contract with Harvard University Press to publish "What the Best Law Teachers Do" in 2011.

Schwartz is currently accepting nominations.   You can nominate your "best law teacher" here.    Additional information on the project (including a list of current nominees) is here. 

- SBS

Another Welcome to Chris Robinette!

I join Bill in welcoming Chris Robinette, who will be joining us for the month of November.   An Associate Professor of Law at Widener's Harrisburg campus, Chris has written extensively on tort theory.  His most recent article, "Torts Rationales, Pluralism and Isiah Berlin," "argue[s] that the value pluralism of Sir Isaiah Berlin, the late English philosopher, provides the framework in which the torts rationales interact."   An earlier piece, "Can There Be A Unified Theory of Torts:  A Pluralist Suggestion From History and Doctrine," contends that "the attempt to unify all of torts is futile," and urges torts scholars to explore the pluralist nature of torts. 

Welcome Chris!

- SBS

$13M Settlement in Rhode Island Nightclub Fire

CNN has more on the settlement, tentatively reached between the plaintiffs and some of the multiple defendants.  The settling defendants include the maker of soundproofing material, the pyrotechnics maker and vendor, the company that leased the building, and an alarm company.  The parties have recommended that Francis McGovern (Duke) oversee the distribution of the money as a special master.

A number of defendants remain, including concert promoters and Home Depot.

--BC

Public Citizen's Blog

Public Citizen has launched a Consumer Law & Policy Blog, and it's worth a spot in your RSS newsreader.  Its authors include an interesting mix of practitioners (both private and those working for Public Citizen) and academics.  Among the recent posts, this one, addressing the state of FDA preemption, caught my eye.

Rating Amusement Rides

Last year, a young boy tragically died on the "Old Mill" ride at Playland in Rye, New York.  The ride is a gentle boat ride, where the boats float through dark tunnels and past mildly spooky scenes.  The boy, seven years old, went on the ride by himself.  While nobody witnessed how he died, the best guess appears to be that he may have gotten scared, climbed out of the boat, and struck his head.

The boy's mother, through her attorney, has proposed a state-implemented rating system for amusement rides, along the lines of movie ratings (though those, of course, are at least nominally voluntary).  The proposal seems interesting beyond the very small number of law profs doing amusement safety (I think I'm half of that universe, with Chad Emerson being the other half) for a couple of reasons.

First, like many state court regulatory schemes, it comes out of a high-profile tragedy, in this case higher-profile due to a death a year earlier on a ride at the same publicly-owned park.  The earlier death had some surface similarities in that it involved a young child on a dark ride.

Second, the proposal promises simple solutions, but I think the reality is that such a ratings system is quite unlikely to do much to increase safety.  This likely failure is due partially to state regulators not being the right people to do such a thing (they generally know mechanics, not the psychology of kids, for example), and due partially to evidence that ratings that exist are rather uniformly ignored.

The facts of the case raise interesting questions about the obligations of manufacturers to anticipate misuse by consumers, especially in cases where the ride is designed to -- at least a little bit -- scare kids and where kids are permitted to ride alone.  I've found similar facts to be a good foundation for a discussion in both Torts and Products Liability classes.

For more on the issue, see Chad's posts (in particular 3/15, 3/13, and 3/11) and mine on MassTort.org (3/13 and 3/14).

Swimming with Sharks Radio

A local lawyer and I had the first broadcast of our new radio show, "Swimming with Sharks," on Valley Free Radio, WXOJ-LP 103.3 FM in Northampton.  Today we talked about punitive damages, among other things.  It included excerpts from the State Farm argument at the Supreme Court.

The podcast is at http://masstort.org/sharkcast/.  To subscribe to the podcast, put the following URL in your podcasting client:

http://masstort.org/sharkcast/?feed=rss2

The show is on every other week on Thursdays from noon to 1.  The station does not presently have a web stream or a functional website.

Conference: Dan B. Dobbs Conference on Tort Law -- Economic Torts

This year the American Law Institute has embarked upon a new project to draft the Third Restatement of Economic Torts. These torts can include established causes of action such as fraud, misrepresentation, professional malpractice, bad faith, breach of fiduciary duty, intentional and negligent interference with contract and opportunity, unfair competition, misappropriation of trade secrets, and disparagement, as well as emerging torts such as conversion of intangibles.

At this pivotal time, the Economic Torts Conference, organized under the direction of Ellen Bublick, Professor of Law at the University of Arizona Rogers College of Law, gathers together more than thirty distinguished academics, judges and practitioners to address the appropriate scope and definition of economic torts. Are economic tort suits desirable? Are they really increasing in number? When should parties be confined to contract alternatives to remedy claims of economic loss?

Our conference examines questions like these, probing the contours and limits of these disparate but often overlapping causes of action.

The Economic Torts Conference will be held March 3rd and 4th, on the campus of the University of Arizona Rogers College of Law in Tucson, Arizona.

More information at http://www.law.arizona.edu/Events/tortsconference.cfm.

Job: Visiting Position at Seattle

Seattle University School of Law invites applications for a visitor position to teach Torts in the fall and spring of 2006-2007.  We are seeking an experienced professor to teach this 5-credit first year course (2 credits in the fall, 3 in the spring); the other fall and spring course to be taught subject to mutual agreement between the visitor and the Law School.    

Seattle University School of Law, with 1,100 students and a current student-faculty ratio of 16-1, educates ethical lawyers who distinguish themselves through their outstanding professional skills and their dedication to law in the service of justice.  Faculty, students, and staff form a vibrant, diverse, and collaborative community that promotes leadership for a just and humane world. The Law School's commitment to academic distinction is grounded in its Jesuit Catholic tradition – one that encourages open inquiry, thoughtful reflection and concern for personal growth. Innovation, creativity and technological sophistication characterize our rigorous educational program, which prepares lawyers for a wide range of successful and rewarding careers in law, business and public service.

Seattle  University, founded in 1891, continues a 450-year tradition of Jesuit Catholic higher education.  The University’s Jesuit Catholic ideals underscore its commitment to the centrality of teaching, learning and scholarship, of values-based education grounded in the Jesuit and Catholic traditions, of service and social justice, of lifelong learning, and of educating the whole person.  Located in the heart of dynamic Seattle, the University enrolls approximately 6,000 undergraduate and graduate students in eight colleges and schools.  Students enjoy a university ethos characterized by individualized faculty attention, a strong sense of community, a commitment to diversity, and an outstanding faculty.

Seattle  University is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer.  Finding prejudicial discrimination inconsistent with the mission of the University and the spirit of free academic inquiry, Seattle University does not discriminate in hiring on the basis of age, sex, race, religion, national origin, familial status, sexual orientation, or disability.  This policy complies with the spirit and the letter of applicable federal, state, and local laws.

Please send cover letter and curriculum vitae to:  Annette E. Clark, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor of Law, Seattle University School of Law, 901 12th Ave,  Box 222000, Seattle, WA  98122.  Telephone:  (206) 398-4069; E-mail:  annclark@seattleu.edu.  Email applications are welcome.