Punitive damages have long been viewed as taxable by the IRS, and that view was enshrined in 1996 with a U.S. Supreme Court case and a statutory change to section 104. Yet there remains a narrow exception from this treatment that exempts limited damages for wrongful death. Wood explores this...

There is a gap in tort recovery for many hazardous release victims. Hazardous spill victims receive different damage compensation based solely upon the type of hazardous substance released, with oil spill victims benefiting from a number of statutory damage recovery mechanisms that victims of...

Little is known about the economics of plaintiff-side law firms, which typically work on a contingency fee basis. We begin here to fill that gap. We report on the fees received by 124 plaintiff-side personal injury firms located in four states (Illinois, Texas, and two additional undisclosed...

In this “scholarative,” combining personal narrative and traditional doctrinal scholarship, the author uses a story about personal loss to argue for a new type of wrongful death damages.When a tortiously caused death occurs, five losses/injuries result: (1) the decedent's life itself; (2) the...