proximate cause

The Anthropocene and private law

Areas such as torts and property will face significant challenges

I’ve posted about how the Anthropocene will see major changes in how humans affect our planet, and how those changes will have major impacts on human society, triggering substantially larger interventions by the legal system in a wide range of individual behavior.  In this post, I want to spin out some of the implications of …

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The Long Environmental Shadow of Palsgraf

Palsgraf is a case known to every American law student.  It involves a bizarre accident: a train employee negligently caused a passenger to drop his bag, which contained fireworks, which went off, which caused freight scales at the other end of the platform to fall over, which hit Mrs. Palsgraf and caused her emotional distress.  …

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