Educational malpractice and setting damages for ineffective teaching: a comparison of legal principles in the USA,England and Australia

The extent to which educational institutions and their teachers in the USA, England, and Australia should bear legal responsibility in damages for ineffective classroom teaching is the subject of this article. At the heart of the controversy regarding educational malpractice is the issue of remedies. Federal and state courts in the USA have resisted awarding damages where such an award would appear to sound in educational malpractice. However, although courts in Australia have yet to declare with any degree of certainty, they appear positioned to follow the English approach that ostensibly acknowledges a school's duty of care to provide effective education for all children.     

食品药品领域检察公益诉讼适用惩罚性赔偿研究

食品药品安全领域案件管辖范围不是一成不变的,食品药品的概念不是确定案件管辖范围的唯一标准.食品药品范围应当理解为广义,可以将与食品药品紧密联系的相关产品的案件纳入可诉范围中,保健品、"药妆"属于食品药品领域范围内.探索推动食品药品领域内惩罚性赔偿的诉讼请求和责任承担方式具有理论和实践上的必要性,应当支持在食品药品领域检...     

The representative jury requirement: Jury representativeness and cross sectional participation from the beginning to the end of the jury selection process

The paper specifically addresses the many ways in which the facially neutral procedures actually fail to secure representative jury pools. Although the Sixth Amendment's fair cross‐section requirement forbids systematic discrimination in the creation of the jury venire and panel, it does not guarantee that the criminal jury will in fact reflect an accurate cross‐section of the community. As a result, not only does the Court fail to focus on nonlegally recognized screening mechanisms and factors such as exemptions, excuses, failure to followup jurors, etc., may affect jury representativeness, but also the Court never examined cross‐sectional representation at the entirety of the jury selection processes, except jury panels and final juries.

The first section of this paper presents a brief overview of the constitutional law impacting impartial juries, especially addressing the fair cross‐section doctrine that is the focus of contemporary jury selection procedures. In providing empirical and systematic comparisons of jury participation at each of the distinct jury selection stages encompassing a general population, jury wheels, jury qualified pools, jury eligibles, jury panels, and actual trial jurors, the second section of this paper makes critical analyses of the cumulative effects of screening mechanisms in jury selection. The paper assesses jury compositions by looking at demographic, socio‐economic, and ideological profiles of prospective jurors, illustrating that those jury profiles do not necessarily reflect cross‐sectional representation of the community population at comprehensive stages of the jury selection process. The analytical findings show that unless some deep seated reforms are made to eliminate cumulative effects of selection biases and correct representative imbalances of jury wheels, qualified pools, jury panels, and trial juries, historically underrepresented groups such as racial minorities, the poor, and part‐time employees will continue to be underrepresented on juries, negating the public's shared responsibility for the administration of justice in one of America's most heralded democratic institutions.     

Liability and food safety provision: Empirical evidence from the US

Recent environmental and food safety incidents are bringing attention to regulatory regimes and their effects on care provision. This article investigates the effects of the application of liability regimes with punitive damages in the reduction of food contamination episodes in the United States from 1990 to 2000. The main result is that the application of strict liability laws allowing claims of punitive damages decreases in a statistically significant way the number of food safety incidents. Statistical results show that states allowing claims of punitive damages are between 15% and 30% less likely to suffer food safety incidents.     

The Expressionless: Law, Ethics, and the Imagery of Suffering

The essay discusses law’s inability to address the phenomenon of human suffering and, at the same time, investigates a possible theoretical kinship between Walter Benjamin’s notion of ‘the expressionless’ and Emmanuel Levinas’s understanding of suffering as the foundation of an interhuman ethics. The kinship between Levinas and Benjamin is examined with reference to suffering in the visual arts and, more specifically, in Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece and Francis Bacon’s crucifixion triptychs. The essay argues that in the crucifixion scenes of both Grünewald’s medieval altarpiece and Bacon’s triptychs, suffering is what constitutes ‘the expressionless’. After every detail of the image, every element of attribute, motif, composition and colour have been accurately depicted, a residue still remains, an ethical truth that cannot be appropriated into a meaningful unity but that nevertheless calls for a response. While law must always give suffering a utilitarian value in its attempts to assign responsibility for the injury occurred, the essay argues that the fragmentariness in all true art that Benjamin calls ‘the expressionless’ is akin to Levinas’s understanding of the constitutional uselessness of suffering, its essence as ‘for nothing’.

论商品房买卖合同中的惩罚性赔偿

《关于审理商品房买卖合同纠纷案件适用法律若干问题的解释》所称的“买受人”,即购房人应为生活需要购买商品房的消费者。该《解释》不是对消费者权益保护法或合同法的直接适用,而是缺乏法律依据的司法创制。该《解释》规定适用惩罚性赔偿的其中三种情形值得推敲。     

人身侵权损害与死亡赔偿的制度理性

现代社会不断发生各种事故造成大量的人身及财产损害,针对这种现象构建良性的法律调整机制给人类智慧带来极大的挑战。我国目前正处于通过创制和健全相关民事立法——侵权责任法来积极应对各种事故导致人身与财产损害的关键时期。通过梳理我国现行人身侵权损害赔偿制度中分散多元多层级立法的大致脉络,提出生命的双重价值观命题以理性关照“同命同价”与“同命不同价”的热议,思考如何使侵权死亡赔偿范围及标准更趋于正当合理等问题,为完善我国相关立法略尽绵薄之力。     

The sociology of the sociology of law: A view from economics

The sociology of law appears to be a weak field in the United States, in comparison to other indisciplinary fields of legal study, notably economic analysis of law. Although American legal sociologists have done important empirical work, particularly on the litigation process and on the legal profession, the focus of American sociology of law has been narrow, theoretically limited, and, empirically, limited in both scope and method. These deficiencies may reflect the methodological limitations of Max Weber, the most influential figure in the history of sociology in general and sociology of law in particular. The failure of legal sociologists to borrow theoretical and empirical tools from sociologically minded economists such as Gary Becker is especially regrettable, and may be due to inaccurate perceptions of the political valence of economic analysis of law, sociology's traditional skepticism about the knowledge claims of other disciplines, professional envy, and misunderstanding of the economists' conception of rational choice.     

Worlds we have lost and worlds we may regain: two centuries of changes in the life course in Sweden.

"The article seeks to place into historical context the familial changes in ?post-industrial' Sweden during the past two decades, by comparing them with general characterizations (based on documented life-course experiences) of the traditional Swedish agrarian society (before 1800), the transitional society (c. 1800-1870), and the industrial society (c. 1870-1980). Familial lives in traditional Swedish society tended to be stable. By contrast, during the agrarian-to-industrial society, especially since World War II, stability became once again the hallmark because of general government social policy."     

论物的损坏与精神损害赔偿的关联--一种功能主义的诠释

在“物”具有情感寄托功能和人身象征功能的基础上 ,精神损害赔偿机制仅仅适用于人身权受侵害的情形显然不当 ,为了保持民法制度功能的协调 ,为了实现民法最大化保护人之利益的功能 ,民法应当在物的损坏与精神损害赔偿之间建立关联。不过 ,出于法律确定性的需要 ,此处的“物”应当是所有权的客体 ,而且其具备的上述两个功能应当得到生活世界公众的普遍认可     

Emotional Reactions to and Support for Immigrant Policies: Attributed Responsibilities to Categories of Asylum Seekers

Dutch participants were asked about their support for immigrant policies aimed at public assistance, opportunities, and rights for asylum seekers. In two studies, the degree of support was examined as a consequence of feelings of anger and sympathy toward asylum seekers. In the first study, both emotions were independently related to support for immigrant policies. Anger had a strong negative effect and sympathy a positive one. In the second experimental study, the effects of these emotional responses on support for immigrant policies were examined for two categories of asylum seekers: political refugees who have little choice but to migrate and so called economic refugees who themselves chose to migrate. These two categories feature in public debates and differ in the perceived responsibility of asylum seekers for leaving their home country. It was found that for political refugees only feelings of sympathy affected policy support, whereas for economic refugees only feelings of anger predicted policy support. In both studies, national identification was negatively related to support for immigrant policies and it did not moderate the effects of anger and sympathy. There was some evidence that anger mediated the relationship between national identification and policy support.     

Let's Get Physical: Civil Liability and the Perception of Risk

The article aims to explore the place of perceptions of riskwithin the law of tort. It examines both property-related, ‘stigmadamages’ cases and also personal injury-related ‘fearof disease’ cases. A finding of some form of physicaldamage or injury seems to be required by the courts in orderto establish liability in both instances. Having explored thecontentious issue of the precise contours of such damage orinjury, the article concludes with a suggestion for a quantifiability-basedapproach to establishing liability in the area.     

虚假陈述的监管与信息披露担保--基于虚假陈述民事赔偿责任的若干思考

信息披露制度是现代证券市场的重要基石,而虚假陈述则是发行人对信息披露义务的严重违反.为能有效地将虚假陈述拒于证券市场之外,除了由证券监管机关在各个环节层层把关,要求发行人严格履行信息披露义务之外,更应引入虚假陈述担保制度,由虚假陈述担保人就信息披露文件的虚假陈述与发行人承担连带赔偿责任,同时引入推定过错和推定因果关系理论,实现投资者追究信息披露担保人虚假陈述赔偿责任的可行性和合理性.     

从海盗赎金的双重性质看船东与货主的博弈

船东遭受的索马里海盗赎金损失,同时符合海难救助和共同海损的构成要件。从船东单方利益看,船东支付赎金的行为是海难救助,但此主张无法使船东从海难救助制度中获益。若主张共同海损,船东可从船舶保险中获赔,获得共同海损的多种担保方式,对无法从货主处实现的共同海损分摊可从船东保赔协会获得补偿,甚至船货同属一人时,该主张亦成立,这符合船东的利益;从船货利益的一致性看,这符合船东与货主的共同利益;从行业特征来看,作为海上运输的参与者和受益者,货主与船东一起分担海上风险,这符合海运业发展的客观要求。共同海损的主张是船货双方利益博弈的结果,体现了海商法为平衡船货利益和维护海运业发展在这背后所进行的调整。     

论赌博罪的完善——法经济学的视角

我国刑法已明确地将赌博作为一种犯罪进行处罚.但由于我国法律没有很好地考虑刑罚的效率性和经济性,在赌博犯罪立法上还存在着一定的缺陷和漏洞.通过法经济学方法,对赌博犯罪立法的正当性和效率性进行分析,提出完善我国赌博犯罪立法的建议.     

分置、合并与转向:程序关系之维的案外人异议之诉

新修的民事诉讼法以及《民诉法解释》通过分置的立法技术确立了案外人异议之诉与案外人申请再审程序之间的“事项”分置关系,确立了案外人异议之诉与第三人撤销之诉之间的“时间—事项”分置关系.综合实体争议与执行程序交叠时的特殊价值考量、程序安定性、既判力维护、案外人实体权益保护等多重因素,上述分置关系具有合理性.《民诉法解释》允许合并审理案外人同时提出的确权的请求,却留下案外人另行起诉的未解“残局”.当下案外人执行程序救济体系在其日益精密、复杂的同时也日益成为高成本体系,应重视低成本程序用尽规则.     

Critical legal and environmental view on the Ramsar Convention in protection from invasive plant species: an example of the Southern Pannonia region

The emergence and continued expansion of one of the most dangerous causes of biodiversity loss and habitat alteration such as invasive species at some Ramsar wetlands of the Southern Pannonia raise a series of questions of both an environmental as well as a legal character relevant to these fragile ecosystems. The Ramsar Convention provides a set of general instructions and guidelines, but it does not establish an adequate mechanism of sanctions that could be imposed on states or individuals who violate its provisions. Fully aware of the importance of wetlands and their wildlife for a healthy living environment and human welfare, the authors of this paper describe the present conditions of invasive plant species at some Ramsar Sites and briefly analyze the current legal framework for the implementation of the Ramsar Convention. Finally, the authors propose innovative normative solutions that would improve the protection of wetlands and contribute to the suppression and prevention of the presence of invasive species not only in this region, but also worldwide.