"We are in virgin territory here," Mr. Corwin said, adding that plaintiffs "have gone on record as saying they are going to try to pierce the limited liability statute".
There has been considerable criticism of statutes that create liability without actual moral fault.
Interpretations of that law, which dates to 1908, often influence the development of state negligence law as well as the application of other federal liability statutes.
As well as the obstacle to any potentially successful legal action posed by the virus's high mortality rate, Texas governor Rick Perry in 2003 signed into law one of the nation's toughest statutes to limit liability for medical malpractice.
In many states, the certificates are coupled with employer liability statutes that say businesses cannot be held liable for negligence in knowingly hiring a person with a criminal record.
Article 85 of the Greek Constitution states: "The members of the Cabinet and the Undersecretaries shall be collectively responsible for general Government policy, and each of them [severally] for the actions or omissions within his area of responsibility according to the provisions of statutes on the liability of Ministers".
City officials are pinning much of their hopes for preventing payouts from ballooning out of control on a motion that city lawyers filed in December, which invoked a 19th-century maritime statute that limits the liability of the owner of a vessel in a crash in certain cases.
For example, do African Americans, whose ancestors were subjected to the terrible injustices of being kidnapped in Africa and subsequently enslaved, have a just claim to compensation?[43] Let us set aside a host of specifically legal questions concerning, for example, the statute of limitations and liability.
The SCOTUS ruling in favor of CTS Corp., whose former electronics plant had leached toxic chemicals into local well water in North Carolina, upheld a state statute that cuts off liability 10 years after the last contaminating act by a company -- or by the government.
Thus, stockholders under certain statutes have a personal liability making them individually responsible for the debts of the corporation to the extent of the par value of their stock or some other specified limit.
