SelectedWorks @ Widener University Commonwealth Law School
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Taking Eco-Efficiency to a New Level (reviewing Ernst von Weizsäcker, Amory B. Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins, Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use (1997))
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“Choice Auto Insurance”: Do Theories of Justice Require Linkage Between Injurers and the Injured?
No full textTort regimes are founded upon a number of different theories of social justice. In this article, the authors examine different theories of corrective justice and join an ongoing discussion about the appropriate relationship between a tort-feasor and an injured victim. As its name suggests, corrective justice is used to restore parties that have experienced a wrongful gain or loss to the status quo ante.Within this broad category of corrective justice this article focuses on two major schools of thought. The first, the annulment theory, proposed by legal philosopher Jules Coleman, emphasized a distinction between liability and recovery. Under this theory, public policy is best served by eradicating or annulling wrongful gains and losses. Accordingly, a tort-feasor is only directly liable to her victim if she receives a wrongful gain and the victim suffers a wrongful loss, as with the typical fraud case. In all other circumstances, the tort-feasor\u27s liability and the victim\u27s recovery are not necessarily connected, and corrective justice is served so long as the victim recovers from some source.The annulment theory has been criticized roundly by Stephen Perry, among others, who has faulted it for a lack of positive logical support. In its place, Perry argues that there is a correlativity requirement to corrective justice. In contrast to the annulment theory, Perry\u27s theory requires a bond or correlation between the tortfeasor and her victim because of the relationship of each one to a common tortious outcome. Each actor has the innate capacity for self-evaluation (or self-reflection) that ties the actor to the results other actions. This self-evaluation is central to the concept of personhood and justifies the correlativity requirement of corrective justice.Concluding the theoretical analysis, the authors concede that the annulment theory can be seen as disproved by an argument supporting the correlativity requirement. Turning to a concrete situation, the authors compare the current third-party tort liability for automobile accidents with a new Personal Injury Protection (PIP) choice auto insurance plan. The PIP plan allows motorists to choose whether to cover themselves by insurance payable with or without fault. Finally, the authors address the central question whether the PIP plan fulfills the correlativity requirement-and decide that it does because it still calls for the necessary self-evaluation essential to Perry\u27s conception of corrective justice
Major Constitutional and Administrative Decisions of 1996: Progress of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
No full textSummary Judgment in Pennsylvania: Time for Another Look at Credibility Issues
No full textMany Iawsuits are characterized by either minor or non-existent disputes over relevant facts, and such cases may be appropriately resolved by a more summary process than a full-blovvn jury trial. In recognition of this phenomenon, courts and administrators have attempted, since at least the eighteenth century, to fashion procedures that expedite civil litigation. Default judgments, judgments on the pleadings, summary judgments and directed verdicts allow courts to enter judgments at various points during the course of the proceedings prior to submitting the case to the jury. The most recent of these procedural devices to achieve trans-substantive application is summary judgment
