Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Tort Opinions Feminist Judgment Series: Rewritten Judicial Opinions Series

By rewriting both canonical and lesser-known tort cases from a feminist perspective, this volume exposes gender and racial bias in how courts have categorized and evaluated harm stemming from pre-natal malpractice, pregnancy loss, domestic violence, sexual assault and harassment, invasion of privacy, and the award of economic and non-economic damages. The rewritten opinions demonstrate that when confronted with gendered harm to women, courts have often distorted or misapplied conventional legal doctrine to diminish the harm or deny recovery. Bringing this implicit bias to the surface can make law students, and lawyers and judges who craft arguments and apply tort doctrines, more aware of inequalities of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation or identity. This volume shows the way forward to make the basic doctrines of tort law more responsive to the needs and perspectives of traditionally marginalized people, in ways that give greater value to harms that they disproportionately experience.

Preface; Part I. Introduction: 1. Introduction to the feminist judgments: rewritten torts opinions project Martha Chamallas and Lucinda M. Finley; Part II. The Classics: 2. Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., 162 N.E. 99 (N.Y. 1928) Taunya Lovell Banks and Maurice Dyson; 3. Escola v. Coca Cola Bottling Co. of Fresno, 150 P.2d 436 (Cal. 1944) Mary J. Davis and Zanita Fenton; 4. Farwell v. Keaton, 240 N.W.2d 217 (Mich. 1976) E Christi Cunningham and Sarah L. Swan; 5. Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California, 551 P.2d 334 (Cal. 1976) Jaimie R. Abrams, Sharmila Lodhia and Stephanie Wildman; Part III. Intentional Torts: 6. Robinson v. Cutchin, 140 F. Supp. 2d 488 (D. Md. 2001) Yvonne Lindgren and Alena Allen; 7. Guthrie v. Conroy, 567 S.E.2d 403 (N.C. Ct. App. 2002) L. Camille Hébert and Sandra Sperino; 8. Lyman v. Huber, 10 A.3d 707 (Me. 2010) Caroline Forell, Jeffrey Thomas and Leah Thomas; 9. Sipple v. Chronicle Publishing Co., 201 Cal. Rptr. 665 (Cal. Ct. App. 1984) Anna Lauren Hoffman and Scott Skinner-Thompson; Part IV. Negligence and Vicarious Liability: 10. Sharon P. v. Arman, Ltd., 989 P.2d 121 (Cal. 1999) Jessica Hynes and Yifat Bitton; 11. Broadnax v. Gonzalez, 809 N.E.2d 645 (N.Y. 2004) Elizabeth Kukura, Eileen Kaufman and Laura Dooley; 12. Boyles v. Kerr, 855 S.W.2d 593 (Tex. 1993) Lisa R. Pruitt and Cristina Tilley; 13. Emerson v. Magendantz, 689 A.2d 409 (R.I. 1997) Lucinda M. Finley and Katherine Silbaugh; 14. McCarty v. Pheasant Run, Inc., 826 F.2d 1554 (7th Cir. 1987) Molly Wilder and Hannah Brenner; 15. Lisa M. v. Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, 907 P.2d 358 (Cal. 1995) Christine M. Tamer and Stacey Tovino; Part V. Damages: 16. G.M.M. v. Kimpson, 116 F. Supp. 3d 126 (E.D.N.Y. 2015) Twila L. Perry, Jennifer B. Wriggins and Sara Cressey; 17. Simpkins v. Grace Brethren Church of Delaware, Ohio, 73 N.E.3d 122 (Ohio 2016) Jill Wieber Lens and Shaakirrah Sanders.

Lucinda M. Finley, the Raichle Professor of Law at the University of Buffalo, SUNY, is a leading feminist torts scholar whose foundational articles examining tort law from a feminist perspective have influenced new generations of legal scholars. She co-edited a leading Torts casebook that directly considers issues of gender, racial, class, and sexual identity equity in tort law.
Martha Chamallas, the Robert J. Lynn Chair in Law at Ohio State University, is known for her scholarship on the devaluation of emotional and reproductive harm and on gender and race bias in damages. She is the author of the leading treatise on feminist legal theory and The Measure of Injury: Race, Gender, and Tort Law (with Jennifer B. Wriggins, 2010).