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Professor Charles “Rocky” Rhodes and his co-author, Professor Cassandra Burke Robertson, have published a new article in the Texas A&M Law Review entitled “Causation’s Due Process Dimensions.” This article argues that the Supreme Court’s punitive damages and personal jurisdiction due-process decisions provide a framework for navigating the tension between tort compensation for victims of mass harms and fairness to defendants when causation is difficult to prove.
The Supreme Court’s due-process holdings regarding both punitive damages and personal jurisdiction emphasize the relationship between a plaintiff’s harm, the defendant’s conduct, and the state’s regulatory interests. The authors contend that this framework also has significant implications for evaluating the constitutionality of state tort doctrines, such as market-share liability and innovator liability, that challenge traditional notions of tort causation.