question archive question: give a short summarization of the reading below with three quotes from the reading
question: give a short summarization of the reading below with three quotes from the reading
Subject:EconomicsPrice: Bought3
question: give a short summarization of the reading below with three quotes from the reading.
reading: The American Museum of Tort Law, in Winsted, Conn., celebrates the generations of trial lawyers whose skill and dedication have protected consumer rights. The first law museum in the United States, its September 2015 opening was the culmination of a 17-year project led by Ralph Nader. Nader chose his hometown for the museum's location to honor its industrial history as a site of working class struggles.
Along with fellow lawyers, legal activists, judges, professors, and scholars, I attended the dedication during the museum's opening weekend, which featured Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a performance from the legendary singer-songwriter Patti Smith, and speeches from people such as New York attorney Carl J. Mayer. To illustrate the classic struggle between business profit and public interest, Mayer spoke of Henrik Ibsen's 1882 play, An Enemy of the People, in which a small town conspires to conceal poisoning of the municipal water supply.
The museum is housed in a handsome granite building on U.S. Route 44. The first thing visitors see is Judge Learned Hand's famous quote: "Thou shalt not ration justice"--a fitting introduction to the exhibits of landmark tort cases that follow. Alongside witty illustrations by Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist Matt Wuerker, these displays aim to educate visitors not only about the civil justice system, but also about the ways corporations have curtailed consumer rights. Interactive features include a video outlining the little-known case facts of the famous "hot coffee" lawsuit.
Among the museum's artifacts is the defective lathe from Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, which caused a piece of wood to fly out of the machine and strike the plaintiff's head. California Chief Justice Roger Traynor's opinion in this seminal tort case established the doctrine of strict liability for defective products. Another exhibit covers the Ford Pinto scandal, when the automaker sold cars with misplaced gas tanks that exploded during rear-end collisions. The exhibit includes internal company memos showing that Ford placed a dollar value on human lives--ultimately deciding it would be more cost-effective to delay repairs that would have saved lives.
Many exhibit plaques pose questions, inviting visitors to think like a policymaker or a lawyer. Nader, who has been dedicated to the legal system and advancing civil justice throughout his career, believes the tort system allows people to get as close as possible to direct democracy. He has cited Toyota's sudden-acceleration defect and Takata's deadly air bags as two recent examples of litigation-exposed wrongdoing that led to media attention, congressional investigations, recalls, and higher safety standards.
Eventually, museum founders would like to incorporate media facilities to stream mock trials and legal news and build a courtroom for reenacting historic trials. They also would like to collect exhibits for a permanent nationwide tour, including compelling demonstratives that lawyers create for trial, which routinely end up in storage rooms. Long aware that civil justice proponents have fought a defensive battle, Nader hopes this museum is a step toward regaining the offensive.
