Torts

A law school casebook that maps the progression of the law of torts through the language and example of public judicial decisions in a range of cases. A tort is a wrong that a court is prepared to recognize, usually in the form of ordering the transfer of money (“damages”) from the wrongdoer to the wronged. The tort system offers recourse for people aggrieved and harmed by the actions of others. By filing a lawsuit, private citizens can demand the attention of alleged wrongdoers to account for what they’ve done—and of a judge and jury to weigh the claims and set terms of compensation. This book, which can be used as a primary text for a first-year law school torts course, maps the progression of the law of torts through the language and example of public judicial decisions in a range of cases. Taken together, these cases show differing approaches to the problems of defining legal harm and applying those definitions to a messy world. The cases range from alleged assault and battery by “The Schoolboy Kicker” (1891) to the liability of General Motors for “The Crumpling Toe Plate” (1993). Each case is an artifact of its time; students can compare the judges’ societal perceptions and moral compasses to those of the current era. This book is part of the Open Casebook series from Harvard Law School Library and MIT Press.

Softbound - New, softbound print book.

A useful guide for attorneys of all levels of experience to most phases of mass tort cases.

Abraham's name appears first on the earlier edition.

This Advanced Torts Book is designed for a two or three hour tort course for students who have had a basic tort class and wish to pursue in-depth some of the important topics of tort law that are either not covered or not covered in much depth in their basic tort course. Unlike some advance torts texts that devote much of their attention to economic and business torts, products liability or toxic torts, this book offers materials on a number of areas: trespass and nuisance, economic torts, products liability, insurance, tort reform and non-tort compensation systems, intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, privacy, misuse of legal process and constitutional torts.

Two preeminent legal scholars explain what tort law is all about and why it matters, and describe their own view of tort’s philosophical basis: civil recourse theory. Tort law is badly misunderstood. In the popular imagination, it is “Robin Hood” law. Law professors, meanwhile, mostly dismiss it as an archaic, inefficient way to compensate victims and incentivize safety precautions. In Recognizing Wrongs, John Goldberg and Benjamin Zipursky explain the distinctive and important role that tort law plays in our legal system: it defines injurious wrongs and provides victims with the power to respond to those wrongs civilly. Tort law rests on a basic and powerful ideal: a person who has been mistreated by another in a manner that the law forbids is entitled to an avenue of civil recourse against the wrongdoer. Through tort law, government fulfills its political obligation to provide this law of wrongs and redress. In Recognizing Wrongs, Goldberg and Zipursky systematically explain how their “civil recourse” conception makes sense of tort doctrine and captures the ways in which the law of torts contributes to the maintenance of a just polity. Recognizing Wrongs aims to unseat both the leading philosophical theory of tort law—corrective justice theory—and the approaches favored by the law-and-economics movement. It also sheds new light on central figures of American jurisprudence, including former Supreme Court Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and Benjamin Cardozo. In the process, it addresses hotly contested contemporary issues in the law of damages, defamation, malpractice, mass torts, and products liability.

To view or download the 2018 Supplement to this book, click here. This casebook emphasizes important circuit court decisions together with relevant Supreme Court case law. This enables students to see how principles articulated in Supreme Court decisions are implemented by lower courts. Constitutional Torts also addresses affirmative duties, constitutional tort actions in state courts, and attorney's fees. Further, this book is organized around the statutory language of section 1983, thereby driving home the crucial distinction between prima facie cases and constitutional tort immunities and defenses. The fourth edition covers Supreme Court decisions from the past several years, including Minneci v. Pollard (chapter 1), Lane v. Franks and Plumhoff v. Rickard (chapter 3), Connick v. Thompson (chapter 5), Rehberg v. Paulk (chapter 7), Carroll v. Carman, Reichle v. Howards, Ashcroft v. Al-Kidd, Camreta v. Greene, Tolan v. Cotton, Ortiz v. Johnson and Filarsky v. Delia (chapter 8), Lefemine v. Wideman and Perdue v. Kenny A. (chapter 12). The circuit courts have been active over the past few years. We have extensively revised the notes to take account of the recent developments. This edition also welcomes Fred Smith as a coauthor. Constitutional Torts studies circuit and district court decisions as crucial to understanding the developing law of Section 1983, because (a) they show how general principles of law pronounced by the Supreme Court are actually applied; (b) the Supreme Court rarely visits some important aspects of the doctrine; and (c) in this dynamic area of the law, the lower courts are the first to identify new issues and new ways of approaching old problems. At the same time, the materials continue to emphasize the "tort" aspects of Section 1983 litigation, especially with regard to affirmative duties, causation, official immunity, and damages. These materials illuminate both the similarities and differences between constitutional torts and analogous principles developed in the common law tort setting. By studying both tort and constitutional principles, students learn how to argue for and against the application of common law tort principles to constitutional tort issues, and will come to understand both the theoretical and practical consequences of the constitutional underpinnings of the litigation. Constitutional Torts provides a thorough treatment of compensatory damages, punitive damages, injunctive relief, and attorneys' fees. These materials not only explain the basic doctrine, but explore their strategic implications on the conduct of litigation. A Teacher's Manual is available to professors. This book also is available in a three-hole punched, alternative loose-leaf version printed on 8.5 x 11 inch paper with wider margins and with the same pagination as the hardbound book.