Author: Eoin

Dr Eoin O'Dell is a Fellow and Associate Professor of Law at Trinity College Dublin.

A cautionary tale

| 2 Comments
| Law

Crash test dummy, accident, via the BBC.There may – controversially – be no duty to rescue at common law (see, eg, Alan Calnan (SSRN), David Hyman (pdf)), but the emergency can beget the man (Wagner v International Railway 232 NY 176 (1926) (Cardozo J)), even in New York. However, although danger may very well invite rescue (Wagner (Cardozo J) again), nevertheless, it seems that it would now be wise to decline the invitation in California. From Ratio Juris:

… The California Supreme Court has given fresh meaning to “no good deed goes unpunished.” It ruled last week that a woman who yanked a co-worker from a crashed car four years ago, and may have made her injuries worse, can be sued because what she did wasn’t medical care. …

The best conceptual discussions are EJ Weinrib “The Case for a Duty to Rescue” (1980) 90 Yale Law Journal 247 and the very different WM Landes and RA Posner “Salvors, Finders, Good Samaritans and other Rescuers: An economic study of Law and Altruism” (1978) Journal of Legal Studies 83 (SSRN); for Irish law on the point, see “Danger Invites Rescue. The Tort of Negligence and the Rescue Principle” (1992) 14 Dublin University Law Journal 65.…

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Laptops in class

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| law school, Legal Education

Laptops in law school classroom.In the Law School in Trinity, the proportion of my students using laptops in class has increased year by year, though they have not yet reached the levels attained in US law schools, where the vast majority of students have laptops in class. Whether this is too much of a good thing, however, is now a serious matter for debate: are benefits of the technology outweighed by the capacity for distraction (taking notes vs updating facebook)? The University of Chicago School of Law has turned off wireless internet access in class, Harvard Law School has considered banning laptops in class, various individual law professors have actually done so or negotiated them away, and there is even a law review article on the issue. Now, Law School Innovation reports on an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education, headlined “Survey Gets Law-School Students’ Thoughts on Laptops, Writing, and Ethics” (sub req’d). Some extracts:

Law-school professors are fed up with students using laptop computers in class to surf to Facebook, eBay, everything but LexisNexis. And some have even banned the distracting machines. But results from a new survey show that an outright ban might not be such a good idea.

…

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Justice in the Media

| 5 Comments
| Irish Law, judges

Justice Media AwardsIt’s an old story by now, but I missed it at the time, and I stumbled upon it today. It begins with a worthy event, the Law Society of Ireland‘s Justice Media Awards, established to give national recognition to legal journalism in various categories. To my mind, the categories are rather narrow, confined as they are in effect to full-time journalists in the traditional media, but that’s a minor quibble which I am sure will be addressed in the future by the addition of a new, more general, category (perhaps named for a significant figure associated with the Society). In any event, the 2008 awards were presented late last year, and at the event Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman of the Supreme Court made a speech which caused some controversy. For example, writing the Irish Times the following day, Carl O’Brien (one of the winners on the night) reported that Hardiman

… has sharply criticised the media for its “inadequate and uninformative” coverage of the courts. Speaking at the Law Society annual Justice Media Awards, he accused the media of rushing to comment on judges’ rulings without properly examining or understanding them.

The Irish Times later published the full text of the speech here.…

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ESB, Xafinity, Madoff: Restitution in the news!

| 4 Comments
| Restitution

In yesterday’s Irish Times, I noticed the following story:

ESB logo, via the ESB site.

ESB to pay rebates on 100,000 overcharged bills

The ESB says the payment of rebates to about 100,000 of its customers who were overcharged on estimated bills will be completed by the end of next month.

The utility is repaying a total of €3.5 million to customers after carrying out a review of its billing practices ordered by the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) …

This is as it should be. Even if there were no contractual obligation on the ESB to regularise the position regarding estimated bills, there would be plainly be a restitutionary one. This reminded me of a story from a recent Financial Times, about pension overpayments on a large scale, which also makes for very interesting reading: …

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Privacy in a private place: nude people have rights too

| 5 Comments
| Cinema, television and theatre, Privacy

CCTV cameraIn Atherton v DPP [2006] 1 IR 245, [2005] IEHC 429 (21 December 2005) Peart J held that a video recording of a hedge visible from the public road – and thus of the accused causing criminal damage to the hedge – did not constitute an unconstitutional invasion of the accused’s right to privacy. On the other hand, in Sinnott v Carlow Nationalist (High Court, unreported, 30 July 2008, Budd J) (already discussed on this site: here, here, here and here), Budd J held that the publication of a photograph of the plaintiff playing Gaelic football in which his private parts were clearly visible constituted a breach of his constitutional right to privacy. It is therefore reasonably clear that – as Atherton illustrates – most matters which occur in a public place will not, for that reason, attract the protection of the constitutional right of privacy; but that – as Sinnott illustrates – some matters will.

Although Sinnott may very well be exceptional, it demonstrates that, as a matter of Irish law, it is possible to assert a right of privacy in a public place. Although it may also be exceptional, the converse may also be true, that a right of privacy may be lost even in a private place.…

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Speak for yourself, Brian

| 1 Comment
| college funding, Universities

I’m all for freedom of speech, but until there is a realistic possibility of having to decide about this issue, my good friend Brian Lucey is on his own.

Maman Poulet reports

TV3 News
Image via Wikipedia

Academics and pay cuts

Associate Professor of Finance at TCD, Dr. Brian Lucey, was on Nightly News with Vincent Browne (TV3) tonight [ed: that was last night; extracts from the show are available here] saying he would not mind taking a pay cut as he’s a very well paid public sector worker and can afford to do so. Of course he also thinks others should follow his lead.

I imagine it might be a bit frosty in Senior Common Room tomorrow as he takes his coffee. Some of the more lowly or maybe that should be less onscreen academics might have a bone or two to pick. And others might point to media appearance fees and column remittances that Dr. Lucey may be earning as a result of the bank crisis that make it ok for him to take a cut.

Is there an appetite for pay cuts in Irish academia I have not yet heard about?

…

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Student vs. University

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| Universities

ABA Journal Blawg 100 logoYou know how it goes at this time of the year – there are lists, lots of them, both of the best/worst of the year that is past and of resolutions and predictions for the year that is coming. I don’t usually go in for either, but one of those lists directed me to such an interesting post that in this case I’ll make an exception. The list is the 2008 ABA Journal Blawg 100, the 100 best Web sites by lawyers, for lawyers, as chosen by the editors of the ABA Journal. The winning blog in the Law Professors category is Jonathan Turley, and this recent post of his caught my eye:

Punitive Extraction: Dental Student Wins $1.7 Million From Four Faculty Members for Dismissal

Tooth, from Turley.In an impressive verdict, Alissa Zwick a former dental student at the University of Michigan has won a $1.72 million verdict with punitive damages from four faculty members (Dr. Marilyn Lantz, an associate dean, and Drs. Bill Piskorowski, Mark Snyder and Fred Burgett) for her dismissal for alleged academic deficiencies. It is a rare verdict in an area generally left to the discretion of faculty.

The trial in the case lasted 14 days and the jury found that the faculty had violated Zwick’s due process rights, awarding a $1 million punitive damages award and $500,000 for emotional distress.

…

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