Catherine M. Sharkey

Courses

• 1L Reading Group: Opioid Epidemic: Law, Art & Activism

  The opioid epidemic is one of the greatest crises of our times. OxyContin, a high-potency painkiller sold by Purdue Pharma, owned by Mortimer and Raymond Sackler, is at the heart of the controversy. In our reading group, we will explore responses from law, art and activism. We will read and discuss a series of New Yorker articles by Patrick Radden Keefe, author of "Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty." The articles address a wide-ranging set of issues, including the wave of opioid lawsuits, as well as responses by the government and art institutions. We will watch Lauren Poitras and Nan Goldin's Oscar-nominated documentary, "All the Beauty and Bloodshed," which chronicles Goldin's work as a photographer, as well as her activism. Goldin founded P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), a group whose protests have influenced leading art institutions such as the Met, the Guggenheim, and the Louvre to remove the Sackler name.

• Artificial Intelligence: Tort and Administrative Law Seminar

  Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the most powerful technologies of our time, but in order to seize the opportunities it presents, we must first mitigate its risks. How should policymakers and courts think about harms or benefits that arise when human activity is augmented and/or replaced by machines? In summer 2023, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) plans to release draft policy guidance on the use of AI systems by the U.S. government. According to the White House: "[T]his guidance will establish specific policies for federal departments and agencies to follow in order to ensure their development, procurement, and use of AI systems centers on safeguarding the American people’s rights and safety. It will also empower agencies to responsibly leverage AI to advance their missions and strengthen their ability to equitably serve Americans—and serve as a model for state and local governments, businesses and others to follow in their own procurement and use of AI." Part I of this seminar will explore the federal government’s ongoing effort to advance a cohesive and comprehensive approach to mitigating AI risks and harnessing AI opportunities. The growing sophistication of and interest in AI is perhaps the most significant contextual change that federal agencies have confronted in recent years. Administrative law principles of accountability and reason-giving will likely guide federal agency use of AI. Part II turns to tort and products liability. New technologies such as AI will lead courts to consider novel products liability questions: Who is responsible if an AI algorithm makes a decision that causes harm? How should fault be identified and apportioned? What difference does it make if the harms are economic, rather than physical? What sort of remedy should be imposed? What measures can be taken to prevent future harm? We will also consider how Generative AI, in particular Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, may be understood through the perspective of products liability law. Students will write five short (3-5 pages) reaction papers that critically assess relevant contemporary scholarship. Grades will be based on seminar participation in weekly sessions (25%), and five reaction papers (75%).

• Business Torts: Defamation, Privacy, Products and Economic Harms

  This course will explore, in depth, significant torts that are not covered in the typical 1L course on physical and emotional harms: defamation, invasion of privacy, products liability, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, and economic harms. We will study the common law origins of defamation as well as the constitutional complications that have arisen in the modern era, and we will explore the closely related issue of privacy rights, including the right to resist intrusions from the external world as well as control and commercial exploitation of one’s own name and likeness. Following a general background on products liability, we will focus on contemporary issues that arise at the contract/tort boundary as well as for the “platform economy.” We will then delve into traditional economic relationships, with our study of the law of fraud and negligent misrepresentation, and exploration of various economic harms, including the economic loss rule and intentional interference with business relations such as inducement of breach of contract, interference with prospective advantage, and unfair competition.

• Torts

  Civil liability for breach of duty causing harm to persons or property. Intentional and unintentional injury; fault and no-fault theories of liability; strict products liability; theories and analysis of causation.