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In Washington State, tortfeasors get a break when they commit intentional torts. Instead of receiving more punishment for their planned bad act, intentional tortfeasors are punished as if they committed a mere accident. The trend does not stop in Washington State--nationwide, punitive damage legislation inadequately deters intentional wrongdoers through caps and outright bans on punitive damages. Despite Washington State's one hundred and twenty-five year ban on punitive damages, it is in a unique and powerful position to change the way courts across the country deal with intentional tortfeasors. Since Washington has never had a comprehensive punitive damages framework, and has largely avoided the sway of the nationwide tort, reform movement, it is a blank slate for demonstrating how punitive damages should be used to deter intentional wrongdoing in a fair and appropriate way. While law and economics theorists have debated how to reach complete deterrence, this Note's argument takes reality into consideration in the form of binding Supreme Court precedent on punitive damages to provide a punitive damages framework that results in more deterrence than current punitive damages provide, and still passes constitutional scrutiny. This Note argues for a punitive damages framework based on graduated levels of culpability and correlated compensatory to punitive damage-award ratios to allow for as much deterrence of intentional wrongdoing as possible, while conforming to Supreme Court precedent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Article discusses how the Walden Court may have mischaracterized the effects test of Calder, and it explores how Calder's effects test should be applied. This Article argues that personal jurisdiction should be based primarily on forum regulatory interest, and it uses this link to apply effects test analysis in defamation situations, then in other contexts unexplored by the Walden opinion. Dram-shop liability and products-liability cases are explored as situations where personal jurisdiction should be upheld, similarly to Calder, on the basis of a plaintiff's good-faith allegation that a defendant intentionally acted to create foreseeable forum effects. To the extent courts are uncomfortable applying such effects analysis, and instead insist on additional defendant forum conduct, this Article suggests such action may be in response to the reality that a plaintiff's jurisdictional allegations almost always involve factually contested matters that, unlike a defendant's presence, cannot be determined apart from the merits of the case. This Article urges courts, however, to resist importing defendant presence-based considerations into modern personal jurisdiction analysis. Instead, courts should allow a plaintiff's goodfaith allegations of defendant-initiated effects to support jurisdiction. Such an approach is the best way to fully implement the minimum contacts approach required by International Shoe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Minnesota Supreme Court's ruling in the 2014 case Doe 169 v. Brandon which deals with the state's tort laws, a foreseeability legal doctrine, and the determination that a church licensing body did not owe a duty to protect a minor from the intentional and tortious conduct of a third party. Negligence law and the procedural posture of the Doe 169 case are examined, along with summary judgments and legal exceptions under Minnesota law.

This Note uses the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark as a case study to examine the legal and nonlegal systems in place to deter unsafe working conditions in the theatre industry. In little over a year of rehearsals and performances, seven members of the Spider-Man cast were injured, one very seriously. (An eighth cast member was then seriously injured as this Note was being prepared for print, approximately two years later.) This Note argues that Spider-Man illustrates how the current regime does not deter unsafe conditions. It argues that the workers' compensation exclusivity bar to a civil suit--which provides employers a complete defense with respect to covered injuries, unless an injury is the result of an intentional tort--should be lowered to create better incentives for producers to ensure the safety of their actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the sex exception in vicarious liability tort litigation in the U.S. Topics include the widespread sexual abuse of children by members of the Catholic Church, if institutions can be held liable for the misdeeds of their members, and tort law in the U.S. Information is provided on compensation for intentional torts.

In Millbrook v. United States, the United States Supreme Court held the law enforcement proviso--an exception to the Federal Tort Claim Act's ("FTCA") preservation of sovereign immunity for intentional torts-- applied to torts committed by law enforcement officers regardless of whether the officer was engaged in investigative or law enforcement activity. The Court, granting certiorari to address a division among circuits as to how the proviso should be interpreted, reasoned that a plain reading of the statute's text revealed congressional intent for immunity determinations to depend on officers' legal authority, not the specific activity they were performing during the alleged tort. Thus, under the Court's holding in Millbrook, the question of whether the government has waived sovereign immunity to intentional torts via the law enforcement proviso depends on the powers invested in the officer, not whether the officer was conducting a search, seizing evidence, or making an arrest. The Court's holding in Millbrook will increase the federal government's liability in regard to torts committed by law enforcement officers, and it leaves certain significant questions unanswered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents U.S. family law-related case digests which include legal proceedings which occurred between August 31, 2011 and August 31, 2012 and address topics such as adoption law, the legal aspects of child custody, and intentional torts. Cohabitation agreements in Iowa are mentioned, along with alimony in New York, prenuptial agreements in Connecticut, and attorney ethics in states such as Oregon. The termination of parental rights in California is also examined.

The article discusses the dignitary torts of defamation, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) in relation to the U.S. Constitution, freedom of speech and expression protections, and American tort law as of September 2012. The First and Ninth Amendments to the nation's Constitution are addressed in regards to the right to sue for dignitary injuries. Other topics include American common law, the U.S. Supreme Court, and a historical overview of torts laws.