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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Phenomenology Of Medico-Legal Causation, Nicholas Hooper Oct 2017

The Phenomenology Of Medico-Legal Causation, Nicholas Hooper

Dalhousie Law Journal

The language of counterfactual causation employed from the bench obscures the analytical vacuity of the "butfor" test. This paper takes issue with the consistent recourse to "common sense" as a methodological tool for determining the deeply complex issue of causality. Despite manifestly empty gestures to, e.g., robust pragmatism, the current approach imposes the dominant values of the judiciary in a manner that perpetuates the current distribution of power. Whatever the merits of counterfactual inquiry, its legal iteration requires judges to construct a hypothetical narrative about "how things generally happen." This, in turn, impels a uniquely comprehensive brand ofjudicialcreativity. The results …


The Virtue Of Process: Finding The Legitimacy Of Judicial Fact-Finding In Personal Injury Litigation, Nayha Acharya May 2017

The Virtue Of Process: Finding The Legitimacy Of Judicial Fact-Finding In Personal Injury Litigation, Nayha Acharya

PhD Dissertations

This thesis is an inquiry into the legitimacy of judicial fact-finding in civil litigation. Judges make authoritative factual findings in conditions of uncertainty and the decision-making process cannot, and does not, guarantee the accuracy of those outcomes. Given the inevitable risk of error, on what basis is the authority of judicial fact-finding legitimate? This project provides a framework of procedural legitimacy that bridges two unavoidable aspects of adjudication: factual indeterminacy and the need for justifiably authoritative dispute resolution. This work draws of the legal theories of Lon Fuller and Jurgen Habermas to substantiate the notion of procedural legitimacy in the …


Out Of The Black Hole: Toward A Fresh Approach To Tort Causation, Allan C. Hutchinson Oct 2016

Out Of The Black Hole: Toward A Fresh Approach To Tort Causation, Allan C. Hutchinson

Dalhousie Law Journal

The present state of Canadian doctrine on causation in tort law is in serious disarray Judges and jurists persist in thinking that it is a factual inquiry separate from policy concerns. This is made obvious in the recent Supreme Court decision in Clements and in the academic commentary around it. In contrast, I insist that the requirement of causation must be understood as being entirely part of the broader debate on the goals and policies of tort law generally Causation is a topic drenched with normative values and should be treated as such.