TORTS TODAY - course materials & news for Torts, Business Torts, Product Liability, and Remedies students of George Conk at Fordham Law School gconk@law.fordham.edu
Friday, July 22, 2016
Depuy verdict affirmed
http://www.massdevice.com/plaintiffs-8m-win-depuy-asr-hip-trial-survives-johnson-johnsons-appeal/
Airbnb Vows to Fight Racism, but Its Users Can’t Sue to Prompt Fairness - The New York Times
Airbnb Vows to Fight Racism, but Its Users Can’t Sue to Prompt Fairness - The New York Times
A recent Harvard working paper has found evidence of discrimination by Airbnb hosts against African American customers. The company has hired former Attorney General Eric Holder to improve its anti-discrimination policies. But facing an Afro-American customer's class action lawsuit for discrimination by an Airbnb host, the company has retained former Solicitor General Neal Katyal and moved to dismiss the action and compel arbitration. The company wants to be treated like a common carrier - avoiding legal responsibility for its "independent contractor" hosts, while compelling the disgruntled to go to arbitration, barring class actions.
A recent Harvard working paper has found evidence of discrimination by Airbnb hosts against African American customers. The company has hired former Attorney General Eric Holder to improve its anti-discrimination policies. But facing an Afro-American customer's class action lawsuit for discrimination by an Airbnb host, the company has retained former Solicitor General Neal Katyal and moved to dismiss the action and compel arbitration. The company wants to be treated like a common carrier - avoiding legal responsibility for its "independent contractor" hosts, while compelling the disgruntled to go to arbitration, barring class actions.
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Senator Tim Scott gives moving speech about racism he faces as a black man | US news | The Guardian
Senator Tim Scott gives moving speech about racism he faces as a black man | US news | The Guardian
by Sabrina Siddiqui
by Sabrina Siddiqui
Black Republican senator Tim Scott talked openly on Wednesday about “the humiliation” of being pulled over by police officers seven times in one year, as well as his experiences being subject to extra scrutiny in Washington as an African American lawmaker.
Scott, from South Carolina, who is one of just two US senators who are black, gave an impassioned floor speech in the wake of last week’s fatal police shootings of two black men, in Minnesota and Baton Rouge, and the killing of five police officers in Dallas.
“While I thank God I have not endured bodily harm, I have however felt the pressure applied by the scales of justice when they are slanted,” Scott said. “I have felt the anger, the frustration, the sadness, and the humiliation that comes with feeling like you’re being targeted for nothing more than being just yourself.”
“Was I speeding sometimes? Sure,” he added of the times he was stopped by police.
“But the vast majority of the time, I was pulled over for nothing more than driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood or some other reason just as trivial.”....
“But the vast majority of the time, I was pulled over for nothing more than driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood or some other reason just as trivial.”....
GM Ignition Switch Claims Resurrected By 2nd Circ. - Law360
BREAKING: GM Ignition Switch Claims Resurrected By 2nd Circ. - Law360
Law360, New York (July 13, 2016, 12:55 PM ET) -- The Second Circuit on Wednesday struck down bankruptcy decisions that shielded General Motors from liability related to ignition switch defects, saying a 2009 sale of the automakers’ assets that provided the company with legal cover violated potential victims’ rights to due process. The appeal is In Re: Motors Liquidation Company, case numbers 15-2844, 15-2847and 15-2848, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
The federal appeals court reversed parts of a 2015 ruling by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber in finding that the sale order could be used to enjoin claims related to the ignition switch defect. The decision examines the limits to which the new GM entity that was formed upon the completion of the bankruptcy sale is shielded by “free and clear” provisions in Chapter 11.
GM did not reveal the ignition switch issue during the bankruptcy; the company began recalling cars because of the defect in February 2014. The timing of the disclosure by GM effectively denied plaintiffs the right to weigh in on the sale and therefore they cannot be bound by the provisions of the sale order that shield the company from litigation, the Second Circuit said.
“Opportunities to negotiate are difficult if not impossible to recreate. We do not know what would have happened in 2009 if counsel representing plaintiffs with billions of dollars in claims had sat across the table from Old GM, New GM, and Treasury,” the Second Circuit said. “Our lack of confidence, however, is not imputed on plaintiffs denied notice but instead bolsters a conclusion that enforcing the Sale Order would violate procedural due process.”
“Indeed, for the following reasons, while we cannot say with any certainty that the outcome would have been different, we can say that the business circumstances at the time were such that plaintiffs could have had some negotiating leverage, and the opportunity to participate in the proceedings would have been meaningful,” the appeals court continued.
Law360, New York (July 13, 2016, 12:55 PM ET) -- The Second Circuit on Wednesday struck down bankruptcy decisions that shielded General Motors from liability related to ignition switch defects, saying a 2009 sale of the automakers’ assets that provided the company with legal cover violated potential victims’ rights to due process. The appeal is In Re: Motors Liquidation Company, case numbers 15-2844, 15-2847and 15-2848, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
The federal appeals court reversed parts of a 2015 ruling by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber in finding that the sale order could be used to enjoin claims related to the ignition switch defect. The decision examines the limits to which the new GM entity that was formed upon the completion of the bankruptcy sale is shielded by “free and clear” provisions in Chapter 11.
GM did not reveal the ignition switch issue during the bankruptcy; the company began recalling cars because of the defect in February 2014. The timing of the disclosure by GM effectively denied plaintiffs the right to weigh in on the sale and therefore they cannot be bound by the provisions of the sale order that shield the company from litigation, the Second Circuit said.
“Opportunities to negotiate are difficult if not impossible to recreate. We do not know what would have happened in 2009 if counsel representing plaintiffs with billions of dollars in claims had sat across the table from Old GM, New GM, and Treasury,” the Second Circuit said. “Our lack of confidence, however, is not imputed on plaintiffs denied notice but instead bolsters a conclusion that enforcing the Sale Order would violate procedural due process.”
“Indeed, for the following reasons, while we cannot say with any certainty that the outcome would have been different, we can say that the business circumstances at the time were such that plaintiffs could have had some negotiating leverage, and the opportunity to participate in the proceedings would have been meaningful,” the appeals court continued.
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Tesla may face claim for autopilot crash
Tesla fatal autopilot crash: family may have grounds to sue, legal experts say
http://gu.com/p/4nqak?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Mark Ellis on Wiesel
In the end Eli Wiesel was deeply corrupted by his complicity with the occupation and the oppression of Palestinians, says Marc Ellis who has long written about Holocaust philosophers like Wiesel.
http://mondoweiss.net/2016/07/elie-wiesel-is-dead/
http://mondoweiss.net/2016/07/elie-wiesel-is-dead/
Monday, July 4, 2016
In Dissents, Sonia Sotomayor Takes On the Criminal Justice System - The New York Times
In Dissents, Sonia Sotomayor Takes On the Criminal Justice System - The New York Times
by Adam Liptak
by Adam Liptak
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court term had barely gotten underway in early November when Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued her first dissent. A police officer’s “rogue conduct,” she wrote, had left a man dead thanks to a “‘shoot first, think later’ approach to policing.”
Justice Sotomayor would go on to write eight dissents before the term ended last Monday. Read together, they are a remarkable body of work from an increasingly skeptical student of the criminal justice system, one who has concluded that it is clouded by arrogance and machismo and warped by bad faith and racism.
Only Justice Clarence Thomas wrote more dissents last term, but his agenda was different. Laconic on the bench, prolific on the page and varied in his interests, Justice Thomas is committed to understanding the Constitution as did the men who drafted and adopted it centuries ago.
Justice Sotomayor’s concerns are more contemporary and more focused. Her dissents this term came mostly in criminal cases, and were informed as much by events in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014 as by those in Philadelphia in 1787....
OTHERWISE: Did a Fear of Slave Revolts Drive American Independence? - The New York Times
OTHERWISE: Did a Fear of Slave Revolts Drive American Independence? - The New York Times
As to the several sorts of servants: I have formerly observed that pure and proper slavery does not, nay cannot, subsist in England; such I mean, whereby an absolute and unlimited power is given to the master over the life and fortune of the slave. And indeed it is repugnant to reason, and the principles of natural law, that such a state should subsist any where.
Judge William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England - 1765
Saturday, July 2, 2016
Is the Tesla self~driving car defective?
Elon Musk's self-driving evangelism masks risk of Tesla autopilot, experts say
http://gu.com/p/4ngby?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger
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