Launched in 2022, and run by U of T Law Professor Sophia Moreau, Professor Zoë Sinel (Western University), Professor Jean Thomas (Queen’s University), and U of T Law Banting Postdoctoral Fellow Anthony Sangiuliano, the Tort Law & Social Equality Project (“TLSE”) aims to foster an awareness of the many inadvertent ways in which legal rules within tort law reinforce and perpetuate systemic social inequalities or, conversely, can be leveraged to help achieve equality. The TLSE maintains a community discussion forum and an open database of primary and secondary sources relevant to the to the focus area.

Starting in January 2024, the TLSE will host a monthly Speaker Series showcasing global scholars who work on topics situated at the intersection of torts and social justice. All sessions will be held virtually through Zoom.

The purpose of the speaker series is to cultivate debate and dialogue within the academic community and foster the emergence of social justice tort theory as a distinctive field of inquiry. “We are thrilled to be embarking on this special initiative to foreground conversations about social justice within tort law theory,” says Professor Sophia Moreau. “The inaugural Speaker Series will bring together pioneers of social justice tort theory as well as emerging voices and expert commentators on recent developments in tort law around the world.”

The first session, “Trauma Damages,” will take place virtually on January 19, 2024.

Presented by Professor Martha Chamallas, this session will examine the concept of trauma as it relates to tort recoveries, including racial trauma, and birth trauma.

Martha Chamallas is a Distinguished University Professor and the Robert J. Lynn Chair in Law Emerita at the Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University. She is the author of The Measure of Injury: Race, Gender and Tort Law (with Jennifer B. Wriggins) (NYU Press 2010), Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Tort Opinions (with Lucinda M. Finley) (Cambridge U. Press 2020) and numerous articles exploring such topics as the devaluation of emotional harm, bias in the computation of damages and the underutilization of tort law for harms stemming from sexual discrimination and abuse.

Subsequent sessions are as follows:

• February 16, 2024, 1:00 p.m. EST: “The Causation Canon,” Sandra F. Sperino (University of Missouri)

• March 22, 2024, 12:00 p.m. EST: “Plaintiff Police,” Sarah L. Swan (Rutgers University)

• April 19, 2024, 12:00 p.m. EST: “The Tort of Family Violence and its Potential to Remediate the Consequences of Abuse,” Jennifer Koshan (University of Calgary) & Deanne Sowter (York University)

• May 17, 2024, 12:00 p.m. EST: “The Value of Personal Rights of Action,” Hanoch Dagan (University of California, Berkeley) & Avihay Dorfman (Tel Aviv University)