Ralph Nader To Open Country’s First Torts Museum

My fellow torts professor Roger Schechter sent me the good news of a museum that will finally cater to the common law set. Ralph Nader is reportedly establishing the nation’s first Tort law museum in his home town of Winsted, Connecticut. The article below includes quotes from local businessman who say that they would prefer a children’s museum but who needs a slip-and-slide when you can have an entire building dedicated to slip and falls? I am already planning my family trips.

As one would expect, the exhibits would include displays on significant cases, including the Chevrolet Corvair, the car featured in Nader’s 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed. I would hope to see a replica of the scales that crushed Mrs. Helen Palsgraf and the explosive squib from Scott v. Shepherd, 96 Eng. Rep. 525 (K.B. 1773).

I have long enjoyed an association and friendship with Nader, who I greatly respect for his crusading work on torts and the public interest. As for the torts museum, I cannot wait to go on the ultimate field trip with my torts colleagues. Once you get through the waivers and reading the signs on the express assumption of the risk, it will be a common law paradise for the risk adverse.

Source: Register Citizen