strict liability; foundations and instances

The Case Against Strict Liability

Pollution Externalities: Social Cost and Strict Liability

This paper critically considers the neoclassical social-cost approach to problems of pollution. This traditional approach, when subjected to close scrutiny, is found to be seriously wanting in applicability and consistency. A less ambitious alternative based on notions of strict liability is offered. The social-cost approach is an offshoot of the “new welfare economics~’developed during the las...

Strict versus Negligence Software Product Liability

The law of products liability in tort is designed to maintain a reasonable balance between the inevitable social costs and the benefits of innovative product technologies. Technological development must be supported not only for the best interests of the public but also the side effect namely product defect into one of the following: (1) manufacturing defect; failures to correctly implement saf...

Strict Liability versus Negligence in Indiana Harbor

In January of 1979, a railroad tank car containing the chemical acrylonitrile started leaking at a rail yard in south suburban Chicago. The chemical was manufactured by American Cyanamid Co (Cyanamid) in Louisiana. Cyanamid had leased the tank car, filled it with acrylonitrile, and delivered it to the Missouri Pacific Railroad for transport to the Chicago suburbs. The leak occurred while the ca...

When is Strict Criminal Liability Just

Criminal Law Reform and the Persistence of Strict Liability

Two reform movements transformed American criminal law in the quarter century that began in the late 1960s. Their origins and effects were starkly different, and their conflict meant that, on core choices about the basis for criminal liability, one movement had to win and the other had to lose. The first movement was the wave of criminal code reform inspired by the American Law Institute’s Mode...