Tom Galligan has posted to SSRN Death in Admiralty. The abstract provides:

This is an article about legal history: the development of the law governing recovery for wrongful death in American admiralty law. Simultaneously, because the discussion spans the time period from 1865 to the present, it is a piece about the current state of the law. But it is also a lament. It is a lament that despite notable efforts, Congress and the United States Supreme Court have not provided full and fair recovery for the survivors of those whose deaths resulted from maritime torts because those survivors often cannot recover loss of society damages. The Court, relying on a vague notion of uniformity, has interpreted statutes designed to provide remedies as bars to recovery for loss of society damages even though the vast majority of States allow recovery for loss of society in wrongful death cases. The Court has ignored statements in earlier opinions, and it has de-emphasized the role of the federal courts in judicially developing maritime law. Concomitantly, because loss of society damages may be recoverable in some maritime wrongful death cases, the jurisprudence is a mishmash of confusion and contradiction. And, critically, the Court has apparently forgotten the humane and liberal character of maritime law providing that it is better to provide a remedy than deny one.

Photo of Christopher Robinette Christopher Robinette

Christopher J. Robinette, an expert in tort law and theory, was appointed Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School in 2021.  He teaches Torts, Products Liability, and Foundations of Tort Law Seminar.

Professor Robinette serves as the United States Representative to the European…

Christopher J. Robinette, an expert in tort law and theory, was appointed Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School in 2021.  He teaches Torts, Products Liability, and Foundations of Tort Law Seminar.

Professor Robinette serves as the United States Representative to the European Group on Tort Law.  In 2012, Robinette was elected a member of the American Law Institute (ALI); in 2019, the ALI Council appointed him as Adviser to the Restatement of the Law Third, Torts.  Robinette also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Tort Law, the only peer-reviewed journal devoted to tort law in the United States, where he previously served as editor-in-chief. He serves as an editor of a leading torts treatise, Harper, James & Gray on Torts, and a leading insurance treatise, New Appleman on Insurance Law Library Edition.  Additionally, Robinette edits TortsProf Blog, a member of the Law Professor Blogs Network. He is an elected member of the European Centre for Tort and Insurance Law and a contributing editor at JOTWELL Torts. Robinette served as chair of the AALS Torts & Compensation Systems Section in 2017.

He has presented on tort law across the United States and the world, including the United Kingdom (Oxford), Poland, Austria, and Malaysia (where he won a “Best Paper” award).  Professor Robinette’s work has been cited by federal and state courts in numerous jurisdictions.  He is frequently quoted in the media in outlets such as the Associated Press, Bloomberg, Reuters, and The Washington Post.

Before coming to Southwestern, Robinette was Professor of Law at Widener University Commonwealth Law School, where he won both scholarship and teaching awards on multiple occasions.  In 2018, he received the Lindback Foundation’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Widener, a university-wide recognition awarded to one professor per year.  Robinette was also a visiting professor at the University of Iowa and Washington University in St. Louis.

Robinette served on the Advisory Board of Salvation Army corps in both Charlottesville, Virginia and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; he was Chair of the Harrisburg Capital City Region Advisory Board from 2010-2012.  He was a member of the UPMC/Pinnacle Health Ethics Committee for several years, primarily addressing end-of-life issues.

Robinette litigated tort and contract cases prior to becoming a law professor, experiences he uses to engage students in his classes.

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