Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2010

Abstract

The Supreme Court's decision in the Stoneridge case has largely been interpreted as a imposing a strict, pro-defendant reliance requirement. This article offers an alternative reading that takes the Court's analysis more seriously than its overheated dicta, one that makes "remoteness" a serious and meaningful inquiry that can produce balanced and fair responses to the concern that seemed to motivate the search for restraint: fear of disproportionate liability. It explores the nature of the dispropotion, and suggests ways--using the Court's own explanatory tools--for deciding when third party involvement is close enough to the fraud so that fear of disproportion lessens. Among other things, this approach leads clearly to a rejection of the so-called "attribution" approach for liability. Recognizing that a statutory solution may be better than judicial patchwork, it also offers a coupling of expanded liability with a more rational and sensible proportionate liability regime than now exists.

Publication Citation

158 U. Pa. L. Rev. 2125-2171 (2010)

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