This survey of recent developments includes reports on amendments to the Canada Marine Act, in particular changes that afford port authorities greater access to financing and regulate their governance, allow for the detention of vessels and goods when enforcement officers believe the act or...

With an annual budget of about $400 million, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is about 5 percent the size of the Environmental Protection Agency, another federal agency created by President Richard M. Nixon in 1970, the "Year of the Environment." Nearly all workers in the...

This paper is in two parts. The first part is a report written in 1989 for the UK Department for Transport (DTp) to consider the way non fatal accidents should be treated in project evaluations. At the time, the DTp had adopted an economic approach to the costing of fatalities based on the...

This paper examines the economic basis of nineteenth century common law of employers' liability, and the impact of statutory reforms such as the Employers' Liability Act 1880, Workmen's Compensation Act 1897 and no-fault liability under the Industrial Injuries Scheme that accompanied the...

Australian courts have been slow to recognise the gendered nature of aspects of the award of damages for personal injury. The decision of the High Court in Griffiths v. Kerkemeyer made it clear for the first time that damages could be recovered for the costs of care even where such care was...

While regulatory agencies place high values on the benefits associated with the reduction in mortality risks due to regulations, these same agencies substantially undervalue lives in their enforcement efforts. The disparity between the valuation of prospective risks and fatalities that have...

The spread of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) among meatpacking employees forced closures and slowdowns at many plants across the United States. As the meatpacking giants JBS, Smithfield, and Tyson became hotbeds for COVID-19, national meat production plummeted. To forestall further...

The effects of the increase in the employers’ liability on work accidents is under-researched. Here the impact using time series analysis of changes brought about by the Employers’ Liability Act 1880 and Workmens’ Compensation Act 1897 on the UK coal mining fatality rates and wages over...

Federal Rule of Evidence 407 prohibits the introduction of subsequent remedial measures for the purposes of demonstrating negligence, culpable conduct, or product defect. But the rule breaks down, in application and purpose, when a defendant undertakes the new safety measure after the...

The political solution to our health crisis appears to be an expanded health coverage program, perhaps universal and mandatory. Increased coverage is expected to result in affordable (and available) care, which will translate into earlier diagnoses and more effective treatment, which in turn...