Legal Commentary

British Petroleum's oil spill in the Gulf certainly provides ample opportunities to teach or, at this point in the semester, to test the Economic Loss Rule.  In fact, it is such a great candidate for an exam hypothetical, it is like shooting fish in a barrel, if you'll pardon the expression.  Essentially, the BP oil spill is the Testbank case times a hundred, with the specter of unlimited liability looming large, and it will be interesting to see if this very dramatic case results in some expansion of the Economic Loss Rule to allow more injured parties--parties without physical injury or property damage--to recover. 

I'll be teaching the Economic Loss Rule in Advanced Torts this summer at the University of Montpellier, but I'm very curious how many Torts professors out there teach it in the first-year Torts class.  I have taught the Economic Loss Rule to 1L students before, but in a four-hour class something had to give, and it seemed natural to give up one of the most complicated and confused doctrines in all of Torts.  Now I'm wondering if that was the right choice.  What do you think?