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Full-Text Articles in Comparative and Foreign Law
Causation In Hepatitis B. Vaccination Litigation In France: Breaking Through Scientific Uncertainty?, Jean-Sebastien Borghetti
Causation In Hepatitis B. Vaccination Litigation In France: Breaking Through Scientific Uncertainty?, Jean-Sebastien Borghetti
Chicago-Kent Law Review
Vaccination against hepatitis B has been available since 1982 and is strongly recommended by most health professionals. In France, the hepatitis B vaccine is very widespread, but it has come under suspicion that it can cause demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis. Several epidemiological studies have been carried out to discover if there is indeed a connection between the hepatitis B vaccination and demyelinating diseases, but no such connection has been established so far. Many cases have nevertheless been brought before French courts, in which plaintiffs argue that they have developed a demyelinating disease due to the hepatitis B vaccination, …
Material Contribution To Risk In The Canadian Law Of Toxic Torts, Lynda M. Collins
Material Contribution To Risk In The Canadian Law Of Toxic Torts, Lynda M. Collins
Chicago-Kent Law Review
Causation is acknowledged as the single biggest hurdle to recovery for plaintiffs in toxic tort actions in Canada (and elsewhere). Scientific uncertainty involving questions of both generic and specific causation has frequently precluded recovery for plaintiffs even where defendants have negligently exposed them to toxic risk. Three types of uncertainty have been identified: plaintiff indeterminacy (where we know that the defendant has harmed some proportion of a particular population but no individual can prove causation); defendant indeterminacy (where we know that a group of defendants has harmed a particular plaintiff or plaintiffs but each can escape liability by pointing the …
Causation In Cases Of Evidential Uncertainty: Juridical Techniques And Fundamental Issues, Ken Oliphant
Causation In Cases Of Evidential Uncertainty: Juridical Techniques And Fundamental Issues, Ken Oliphant
Chicago-Kent Law Review
This paper reviews from a comparative legal perspective the range of juridical techniques that have been developed in different legal systems to address perceived problems of uncertain alternative causation. It finds that the process of development has generally proceeded in an ad hoc and unprincipled fashion, without regard for overall coherence. It argues for a more principled legal approach in which the appropriate legal response (full liability, proportional liability or no liability) is adopted on the basis of a ranking of the different categories of cases in which problems of causal uncertainty can arise, reflecting the strength (or weakness) of …