I would add to Ken's sources also Mark Galanter's piece "An
Oil Strike in Hell: Contemporary Legends about the Civil Justice
System" (1998) 40 Arizona L.R.
717.
best
wishes
Tsachi
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 4:56
PM
Subject: RE: Stella Awards
[Warning: self-publicity!]
The story of "Winnebago man" - and the national
newspapers which reported it as fact in the UK(!) - is told on p. 37 of Lunney
& Oliphant, Tort Law: Text & Materials (3rd edn. 2008), leading into a
discussion of the "myth-representation" in the popular re-telling of the
McDonald's coffee case.
The myth (widely reported as fact) that hanging baskets
in St Albans were removed by the council because of liability / health and
safety fears is exposed by Kevin Williams [2006] JPIL 347 and Paul Almond
(2009) 36 Journal of Law and Society 352.
I highly recommend Haltom and McCann's Distorting the
Law (2004), which exposes how "tort reformers" in the US deliberately
manufacture, and saturate the media with popular narratives ("pop torts") that
advance their cause.
Annette Morris's "Spiralling or Stabilising" (2007) 70
MLR 349 also contains excellent analysis of this issue.
Best wishes from Vienna!
Ken
Institute
for European Tort Law
Reichsratsstrasse
17/2, A-1010 Vienna, Austria
Tel.
(+43-1) 4277-29 662, Fax (+43-1) 4277-29 670
http://www.etl.oeaw.ac.at
Thanks to everyone who
responded to my query about the Stella Awards pointing out that they are a
hoax.
I should have Googled first before
emailing the list.
Although it's not a surprise, there was
just a tiny little bit of me sort of "wishing" that at least one or two were
true ...
Michael
--------------------------------------
Michael A. Jones
Professor of Common Law
Liverpool Law School
University of Liverpool
Liverpool
L69 3BX
Phone: (0)151 794 2821
Fax: (0)151 794
2829
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