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Full-Text Articles in Law

“Statistics Are Human Beings With The Tears Wiped Away”: Utilizing Data To Develop Strategies To Reduce The Number Of Native Americans Who Go Missing, Lori Mcpherson, Sarah Blazucki Jan 2023

“Statistics Are Human Beings With The Tears Wiped Away”: Utilizing Data To Develop Strategies To Reduce The Number Of Native Americans Who Go Missing, Lori Mcpherson, Sarah Blazucki

Seattle University Law Review

On New Year’s Eve night, 2019, sixteen-year-old Selena Shelley Faye Not Afraid attended a party in Billings, Montana, about fifty miles west of her home in Hardin, Montana, near the Crow Reservation. A junior at the local high school, she was active in her community. The party carried over until the next day, and she caught a ride back toward home with friends in a van the following afternoon. When the van stopped at an interstate rest stop, Selena got out but never made it back to the van. The friends reported her missing to the police and indicated they …


Haack On Legal Proof, Richard Wright Nov 2018

Haack On Legal Proof, Richard Wright

All Faculty Scholarship

In this paper I discuss Susan Haack’s illuminating discussion and constructive critique of the current confusion regarding the standards of proof employed in the law, focusing especially on mathematical probability rather than warranted belief interpretations of those standards. At the end, I question Haack’s claim that statistical evidence is relevant not only for establishing the existence of a causal process but also, although usually insufficient by itself, for proving actual causation in a specific case.


When 10 Trials Are Better Than 1000: An Evidentiary Perspective On Trial Sampling, Edward K. Cheng Jan 2012

When 10 Trials Are Better Than 1000: An Evidentiary Perspective On Trial Sampling, Edward K. Cheng

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In many mass tort cases, separately trying all individual claims is impractical, and thus a number of trial courts and commentators have explored the use of statistical sampling as a way of efficiently processing claims. Most discussions on the topic, however, implicitly assume that sampling is a “second best” solution: individual trials are preferred for accuracy, and sampling only justified under extraordinary circumstances. This Essay explores whether this assumption is really true. While intuitively one might think that individual trials would be more accurate at estimating liability than extrapolating from a subset of cases, the Essay offers three ways in …


Conjunction And Aggregation, Saul Levmore Feb 2001

Conjunction And Aggregation, Saul Levmore

Michigan Law Review

This Article begins with the puzzle of why the law avoids the issue of conjunctive probability. Mathematically inclined observers might, for example, employ the "product rule," multiplying the probabilities associated with several events or requirements in order to assess a combined likelihood, but judges and lawyers seem otherwise inclined. Courts and statutes might be explicit about the manner in which multiple requirements should be combined, but they are not. Thus, it is often unclear whether a factfinder should assess if condition A was more likely than not to be present - and then go on to see whether condition B …


Using Statistical Techniques To Predict Non-Pecuniary Damage Awards In Personal Injury Cases, Jack Effron, John Forster Apr 1989

Using Statistical Techniques To Predict Non-Pecuniary Damage Awards In Personal Injury Cases, Jack Effron, John Forster

Dalhousie Law Journal

The real issue in personal injury cases is often damages. Our concepts and law relating to negligence and other aspects of personal injury are sufficiently developed that parties can often agree upon who is at fault. Yet damages law, for all the cases and principles which have been decided, remains the least intelligible and thus the least predictable for parties and their counsel. When parties have to go to trial in a personal injury case, it is often primarily to decide who should pay what.


Radiation Injuries And Statistics: The Need For A New Approach To Injury Litigation, Samuel D. Estep Dec 1960

Radiation Injuries And Statistics: The Need For A New Approach To Injury Litigation, Samuel D. Estep

Michigan Law Review

The emphasis given by the mass media of communication to some of the dramatic problems arising from the use of nuclear energy unfortunately has diverted attention from some of the matters about which something can be done by lawyers, administrators, and legislators without the necessity of complicated international negotiations between various parties to the "Cold War." The headlines leave the uninformed, and perhaps often also the informed, public with the impression that even for radiation injuries the important problems all deal with such questions as: (1) Will only a few or many millions of people survive an all-out nuclear war? …