Food is a powerful drug. Big companies have pumped meals full of addictive substances that keep people hooked on unhealthy foods at the expense of their health. Modern scientific research has demonstrated that hyper-palatable foods have the same neurological effects as other addictive substances. Given that unbridled consumption of food can have serious health effects, food addiction is a dangerous illness. Despite these deleterious impacts, the...
Torts
For over a decade, a battle has been raging in the trial courts of this country over something called the “reptile theory,” often simply referred to by insiders as “the reptile.” The term comes from Reptile: The 2009 Manual of the Plaintiff’s Revolution. The book’s thesis is that the way for plaintiffs to win tort cases and secure large verdicts is to appeal to the reptilian part of jurors’ brains, which (like threatened...
Introduction Academic life is rarely quite so rewarding. Thanks to the editors of the Columbia Law Review for this opportunity to engage with scholars as gifted as Professors Robert Rabin, Carol Sanger, and Gregory Keating. I have long admired their insights on law, ethics, and institutions. I am grateful and privileged for their trenchant responses […]
Tort law is often seen as a tool for protecting privacy. But tort law can also diminish privacy, by pressuring defendants to gather sensitive information about people, to install comprehensive surveillance, and to disclose information. And the pressure is growing, as technology makes surveillance and other information gathering more cost effective and thus more likely...