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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Distorted Reality Of Civil Recourse Theory , Alan Calnan
The Distorted Reality Of Civil Recourse Theory , Alan Calnan
Cleveland State Law Review
In their recent article Torts as Wrongs, Professors John C.P. Goldberg and Benjamin C. Zipursky offer their most complete and accessible explanation of the civil recourse theory (CRT) of tort law. A purely descriptive account, CRT holds that tort law is exclusively a scheme of private rights for the redress of legal wrongs and is not a pragmatic mechanism for imposing strict liability or implementing public policy. The present paper challenges this view by revealing critical errors in its perspective, methodology, and analysis. It shows that Goldberg and Zipursky do not objectively observe tort law and uncritically report what they …
A Moving Bar Approach To Assessing The Admissibility Of Expert Causation Testimony, Aaron Katz
A Moving Bar Approach To Assessing The Admissibility Of Expert Causation Testimony, Aaron Katz
Cleveland State Law Review
This Article argues that the Supreme Court's decisions in Daubert and Joiner imply an approach to the reliability, and hence admissibility, of causation experts that conflicts with the way in which courts traditionally had determined whether to allow the jury to speculate on uncertain causation-in-fact questions. Largely moving past the debate of whether Daubert and Joiner set the admissibility bar too high or low, the Article instead criticizes the decisions on the ground that they suggest that the height of the reliability bar is static and should not be adjusted depending upon the circumstances of the defendant's possibly injurious conduct. …
Doctors, Nurses And Superseding Cause: The Demise Of The Last In Time Defense, Charles Lattanzi
Doctors, Nurses And Superseding Cause: The Demise Of The Last In Time Defense, Charles Lattanzi
Journal of Law and Health
The question which naturally arises is whether the determination of superseding cause in this context is a question for the jury. Ohio case law has long held, as a matter of law, that the aggravation of an injury by the subsequent malpractice of a physician never breaks the chain of causation. Assuming that the original tortfeaser was negligent and that his actions caused the original injury, the only question left for the jury is whether the plaintiff herself exercised reasonable care in seeking treatment by a qualified physician. This rule was affirmed and given its common appellation, "the subsequent tortfeasor …
Assessment Of Carcinogenic Risk And The Delaney Clause: The Search For A Better Standard, Mark A. Cleaves
Assessment Of Carcinogenic Risk And The Delaney Clause: The Search For A Better Standard, Mark A. Cleaves
Journal of Law and Health
This article will focus upon the legislative history and subsequent case law dealing with the Delaney Clause and it will include the rationale and limitations of the provision. In order to regulate carcinogens one must have a clear understanding of the cancer processes. Therefore a brief discussion of the biological parameters involved is warranted. The purpose of this discussion is to find a more rational alternative to the Delaney Clause. The use of quantitative risk assessment as an approach to regulate carcinogens found in food is also discussed. By combining the purposes of the original (and current statutory provisions with …
Surrogate Motherhood And Tort Liability: Will The New Reproductive Technologies Give Birth To A New Breed Of Prenatal Tort, Nancy Hansbrough
Surrogate Motherhood And Tort Liability: Will The New Reproductive Technologies Give Birth To A New Breed Of Prenatal Tort, Nancy Hansbrough
Cleveland State Law Review
It seems inevitable that new causes of action will evolve as more childless couples resort to the use of the new reproductive methodologies. The prenatal tort claims abounding in precedent today lay a firm foundation for the recognition of a new form of tort liability. This Note will first examine briefly the history of prenatal torts, and present the status of recovery today. The Note will then examine the history and current status of the doctrine of parent-child immunity in the United States. Concentrating on these two concepts, the nature of a tort claim by an injured child for prenatal …
Battery In Medical Torts, Don S. Smith
Battery In Medical Torts, Don S. Smith
Cleveland State Law Review
The purpose of this paper is not so much to explore when and under what circumstances a battery takes place but to deal with the problems which the classification itself creates. These include questions of the applicability of special malpractice statutes of limitation, whether an action can be maintained under the Federal Tort Claims Act, coverage under malpractice insurance policies, causation and damages, and the requirement of expert medical testimony to provide a standard against which the conduct of the defendant may be measured.
Traumatic Cancer, Theodore Dyke
Traumatic Cancer, Theodore Dyke
Cleveland State Law Review
The relationship of trauma to cancer may be of minimal import to the medical world; however, it is extremely important to the attorney from the point of view of compensation. The real problem is that no one knows what "causes"cancer. The present state of the medical art indicates that a given cancer may be caused by any of a number of factors, acting singly or jointly. Trauma is one of these factors, but the exac teffect of a single trauma in causing cancer is unknown. Medical experts will honestly differ in their opinions, because in fact they are frequently just …
Causation In Death After Trauma With Pre-Existing Cardiac Disease, S. R. Gerber
Causation In Death After Trauma With Pre-Existing Cardiac Disease, S. R. Gerber
Cleveland State Law Review
Adoption of commonly used words as synonyms for more precise terminology accepted for use within a profession leads to confusion when two or more professions employ the same word with different connotations. Thus, cause of death implies to the physician the etiology of the condition responsible for the terminal morbid process. In this respect, the physician considers the cause of death as the ultimate result of interaction of several conditions rather than a single entity.
Stress-Caused Heart Attacks, Chester M. Denwicz
Stress-Caused Heart Attacks, Chester M. Denwicz
Cleveland State Law Review
Current statistics demonstrate that almost any person may be suffering from some degree of hypertension or arteriosclerosis, and that if he enjoys an extended life span, he is likely to sustain a "heart attack" from which his chance of dying is great. Cardiovascular disease has, therefore, become an incident of modern living, and cardiovascular injuries are one of the most controversial areas of liability in the field of workmen's compensation. The conflict concerning heart cases, and especially those related to the "stress incurred," arises primarily from the difficulty of proving causation. The confusion arising from conflicting judicial construction of terms …
Semantics Of Traumatic Causation, Richard M. Markus
Semantics Of Traumatic Causation, Richard M. Markus
Cleveland State Law Review
Sometime before the trial of every personal injury case, each lawyer involved must make sure that the physicians whom he will call to testify understand the legal meaning of certain medical words. Counsel have not sufficiently prepared their case from a medical viewpoint, when they have ascertained the trauma sustained and its medical consequences. The lawyer must also educate the doctor about legal technicalities which will control the significance of the doctor's testimony. Among the most important formal requirements on the physician's testimony are those which relate to the language of causation. This article will discuss the views of various …
Recent Traumatic Disease Claims, Henry B. Fischer
Recent Traumatic Disease Claims, Henry B. Fischer
Cleveland State Law Review
Claimants over the years have alleged a causal relation between trauma and almost every conceivable disease. Medicolegal literature abounds with articles concerning the relation between trauma and the more commonly occurring diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, arthritis, bursitis, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, and epilepsy. Numerous books wholly devoted to the relation of trauma and disease, have been written.This article is primarily concerned with cases wherein an allegation is made that a single trauma caused a disease.
Heart Attack As Compensable Injury, Marvin D. Silver
Heart Attack As Compensable Injury, Marvin D. Silver
Cleveland State Law Review
The original intention of the author was to propose the idea that a heart attack might be compensable as an occupational disease. However, after extensive research and deliberation, it appears evident that the universally accepted construction and interpretation of the term "occupational disease" is invulnerable to the inclusion therein of the heart attack incident.
Psychosomatic Disease And The Law, Carl E. Wasmuth
Psychosomatic Disease And The Law, Carl E. Wasmuth
Cleveland State Law Review
There are fundamental differences between the standard of probabilities in law upon which a jury must deliberate, andthe standard of certainty in the scientific laboratory of medicine which an investigator must respect. This conflict is nowhere more evident than in the field of psychosomatic disease. This area of medicine has long been recognized but it was only in recent years that it has become the target for intense research. This lack of medical interest in what was considered a fringe area has caused the legal profession to substitute law for medicine. Eventually, however, science will progress in the field of …
Occupational Dermatitis In Railroad Cases, Howard L. Oleck, Elmer I. Schwartz
Occupational Dermatitis In Railroad Cases, Howard L. Oleck, Elmer I. Schwartz
Cleveland State Law Review
Employers today must be presumed to know of the dangerous nature of many chemicals which produce contact dermatitis, as well as respiratory and other injuries. Among the known-to-be-dangerous substances are such things as chrome compounds, lead compounds, petroleum compounds, and many others. The danger of sensitization by these substances also must be presumed to be known. It follows that an employer is legally bound to take all reasonable possible precautions to protect his workers from such injuries. Whether or not he has taken adequate precautions is a question of fact, for the jury. If he has taken no special precautions, …
Preparation And Trial Of A Medical Malpratice Case, John J. Kennett
Preparation And Trial Of A Medical Malpratice Case, John J. Kennett
Cleveland State Law Review
Law implies from the employment of a doctor contract that the doctor will diagnose and treat his patient with that degree of skill and learning which is possessed by the average member of his profession in the community in which he practices. A doctor licensed to practice is presumed to possess such skill and learning. He does not incur liability for his mistakes if he has used methods, in his diagnosis and treatment, recognized and approved by the average member of the medical profession practicing in his community. A doctor's negligence in departing from the standard of practice in his …
The Frightened Medical Witness; Or Globus Hystericus Must Go, David I. Sindell
The Frightened Medical Witness; Or Globus Hystericus Must Go, David I. Sindell
Cleveland State Law Review
This article is written on behalf of the many trauma patients and their trial attorneys who discover to their horror, that their important medical witness - the "attending" doctor, - suffers from "Globus Hystericus". It is hoped that this paper may prove to be the elusive Rx to cure some difficulties raised by those few physicians (and yet there are too many) who hide their fear of the witness chair behind lame excuses, or even behind flat refusals to testify.
Causation: A Medico-Legal Battlefield, Albert Averbach
Causation: A Medico-Legal Battlefield, Albert Averbach
Cleveland State Law Review
In the court room, the trial lawyer strives to introduce medical testimony as to the cause of a condition or disease. Resort in many instances is made, through a hypothetical question to a non-attending physician, as to whether or not the accident described was a competent cause of a later-described or assumed condition, or "might," "could, "would," or "was" competent to have caused it. A great conflict exists in the various states as to the permissible range of inquiry in such cases, depending upon the particular jurisdiction's interpretation of the requirement that medical opinions must be reasonably certain or reasonably …