Health Law and Policy Commons^™

How Much Do Expert Opinions Matter? An Empirical Investigation Of Selection Bias, Adversarial Bias, And Judicial Deference In Chinese Medical, Chunyan Ding

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

This article investigates the nature of the operation and the role of expert opinions in Chinese medical negligence litigation, drawing on content analysis of 3,619 medical negligence cases and an in-depth survey of judges with experience of adjudicating medical negligence cases. It offers three major findings: first, that both parties to medical negligence disputes show significant selection bias of medical opinions, as do courts when selecting court-appointed experts; second, expert opinions in medical negligence litigation demonstrate substantial adversarial bias; third, courts display very strong judicial deference to expert opinions in determining medical negligence liability. This article fills the methodological gap …

Measles And Misrepresentation In Minnesota: Can There Be Liability For Anti-Vaccine Misinformation That Causes Bodily Harm?, Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, John Diamond

San Diego Law Review

Balancing protecting and compensating victims of harmful fake news and protecting freedom of speech and the information flow is both important and challenging. Vaccines are one area where misinformation can directly cause harm. When misrepresentation leads people to refuse vaccines, disease outbreaks can happen, causing harm, even deaths, and imposing costs on the community. The tort of negligent misrepresentation that causes physical harm appears a custom-made remedy for those affected. However, courts—appropriately— narrowed the tort to protect freedom of speech and the flow of information. This Article uses an especially egregious example of anti-vaccine misrepresentation to examine the boundaries of …

The Internet Of Bodies, Andrea M. Matwyshyn

William & Mary Law Review

This Article introduces the ongoing progression of the Internet of Things (IoT) into the Internet of Bodies (IoB)—a network of human bodies whose integrity and functionality rely at least in part on the Internet and related technologies, such as artificial intelligence. IoB devices will evidence the same categories of legacy security flaws that have plagued IoT devices. However, unlike most IoT, IoB technologies will directly, physically harm human bodies—a set of harms courts, legislators, and regulators will deem worthy of legal redress. As such, IoB will herald the arrival of (some forms of) corporate software liability and a new legal …

Potential Liability For Physicians Using Artificial Intelligence, W. Nicholson Price Ii, Sara Gerke, I Glenn Cohen

Articles

Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly making inroads into medical practice, especially in forms that rely on machine learning, with a mix of hope and hype. Multiple AI-based products have now been approved or cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and health systems and hospitals are increasingly deploying AI-based systems. For example, medical AI can support clinical decisions, such as recommending drugs or dosages or interpreting radiological images.2 One key difference from most traditional clinical decision support software is that some medical AI may communicate results or recommendations to the care team without being able to communicate the …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Money That Costs Too Much: Regulating Financial Incentives, Kristen Underhill

Indiana Law Journal

Money may not corrupt. But should we worry if it corrodes? Legal scholars in a range of fields have expressed concern about “motivational crowding-out,” a process by which offering financial rewards for good behavior may undermine laudable social motivations, like professionalism or civic duty. Disquiet about the motivational impacts of incentives has now extended to health law, employment law, tax, torts, contracts, criminal law, property, and beyond. In some cases, the fear of crowding-out has inspired concrete opposition to innovative policies that marshal incentives to change individual behavior. But to date, our fears about crowding-out have been unfocused and amorphous; …

The Courtroom Turned Classroom: A Model Procedure For Educating The Gatekeepers Of Expert Evidence In Complex Toxic Tort Cases, Izabelle Tully

Cardozo Law Review

This Note maintains that in order for Rule 702 and the Daubert standard to have their intended effect, judges need more guidance and structure in how they approach scientific admissibility decisions. An analysis of how courts following Daubert currently address novel science, specifically in toxic tort cases where some members of the scientific community label causation evidence as junk science, supports this argument. This Note will focus on procedures courts have used to make gatekeeping decisions. From a study of these procedures, this Note will suggest a model framework that courts should employ to tackle novel science issues in mass …

Congress Prescribes Preemption Of State Tort-Reform Laws To Remedy Healthcare "Crisis": An Improper Prognosis?, Jason C. Sheffield

Student Scholarship

Say what you want about the tort-reform debate, but it has staying power. Over the last half-century, legislators and commentators have extensively debated every aspect of tort reform and the litigation "crisis" arguably giving rise to it, without resolving much of anything. Despite this ideological stalemate, tort-reform proponents have managed to push measures through every state legislature. With fifty tries come fifty results, and for the most part, fifty failures. But have all these efforts been in vain? As of yet, no. Although the healthcare system does not appear to be improving, the numerous tort-reform measures states have adopted provide …

Congress Prescribes Preemption Of State Tort-Reform Laws To Remedy Healthcare "Crisis": An Improper Prognosis?, Jason C. Sheffield

Journal of Law and Health

Say what you want about the tort-reform debate, but it has staying power. Over the last half-century, legislators and commentators have extensively debated every aspect of tort reform and the litigation "crisis" arguably giving rise to it, without resolving much of anything. Despite this ideological stalemate, tort-reform proponents have managed to push measures through every state legislature. With fifty tries come fifty results, and for the most part, fifty failures. But have all these efforts been in vain? As of yet, no. Although the healthcare system does not appear to be improving, the numerous tort-reform measures states have adopted provide …

The Plasticity Of The Body, The Injury, And The Claim: Personal Injury Claims In The Era Of Plastic Surgeries, Adi Youcht

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

The accelerated rise in the number of plastic surgeries has created an inflation of personal injury claims in connection with this cultural practice. This Article, on the one hand, aims to understand how the culture of plastic surgeries affects the tortious area of personal injury law (terms, concepts, goals, procedures, remedies, etc.), and on the other to understand how the significance of plastic surgery popular culture is designated by law. The Article suggests a new paradigm for defining personal injuries in order to face the legal challenges raised by plastic surgery culture and, in light of the culture’s re-designation by …

21st Century Cures Act: The Problem With Preemption In Light Of Deregulation, Megan C. Andersen

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The 21st Century Cures Act introduced innovative changes to the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory processes. In an effort to address the slow, costly, and burdensome approval process for high-risk devices, the Cures Act modernized clinical trial data by allowing reviewers to determine whether devices merit expedited review and to consider post-market surveillance data in the premarket approval process. These changes will get life-saving devices to the people who need them faster than ever before. But the tradeoff is a greater risk of injury to the patient. The 2008 Supreme Court decision Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc., held that any …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The "Art" Of Future Life: Rethinking Personal Injury Law For The Negligent Deprivation Of A Patient's Right To Procreation In The Age Of Assisted Reproductive Technologies, Erika N. Auger

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Costs Of Having (Too) Many Choices: Reshaping The Doctrine Of Informed Consent, Maytal Gilboa, Omer Y. Pelled

Brooklyn Law Review

This article suggests a reshaping of the doctrine of informed consent to accommodate the potential costs of choices vis-à-vis patients’ well-being. Applying insights from psychology and behavioral economics, it makes four main claims. First, the current doctrine imposes a broad duty of disclosure on physicians toward their patients, based on the premise that patients want and need to know all the alternative treatments for their ailment. We argue that this premise is misguided. The process of choice making is not cost free. Since patients incur costs when they must choose a treatment from too many alternatives, the current duty should …

Tort Law And Health Law: Intersections And Opportunities, Stacey A. Tovino

Other Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Strict Liability For Genetic Privacy Violations In The Age Of Big Data, Benjamin Sundholm

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The ethical issues implicated by the misuse of genetic information have been smoldering for over half a century, and the age of big data has turned them into a five-alarm fire. In recent years, medical researchers and commercial enterprises have been using technological advancements to develop a variety of innovative ways to use genetic information. For example, it is becoming increasingly common for people to learn more about their health and family history by paying direct-to-consumer (“DTC”) companies to analyze their genetic data. DTC companies store the results of these tests electronically and often share them with pharmaceutical companies …

A Black Box For Patient Safety?, Nathan Cortez

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Technology now makes it possible to record surgical procedures with striking granularity. And new methods of artificial intelligence (A.I.) and machine learning allow data from surgeries to be used to identify and predict errors. These technologies are now being deployed, on a research basis, in hospitals around the world, including in U.S. hospitals. This Article evaluates whether such recordings – and whether subsequent software analyses of such recordings – are discoverable and admissible in U.S. courts in medical malpractice actions. I then argue for reformulating traditional "information policy" to accommodate the use of these new technologies without losing sight of …

Healthism In Tort Law, Elizabeth Weeks

Scholarly Works

This article draws on the author's recently published book, Healthism: Health Status Discrimination and the Law (with Jessica L. Roberts) (Cambridge University Press 2018), examining tort law doctrine and policy for examples of differential treatment of health status or behaviors. Just as scholars previously have drawn attention to discrimination based on race, sex, age, and other protected categories in tort law, the article urges similar examination of tort law's potential to discriminate against the unhealthy. The article discusses the potential for healthism in the reasonably prudent person standard of care, contributory negligence, assumption of the risk, noneconomic damages caps, impaired …

Out Of The Freezer And Into The Policy Fire: Quandaries In Reproductive Cryopreservation, Rebecca Feinberg

Scholarly Works

The field of assisted reproduction is advancing rapidly and is ripe for regulation and guidance. In 2018, over four thousand frozen eggs and embryos were lost to approximately one thousand patients at Ahuja University Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, due to an accidental thaw of a cryopreservation tank. The precedent that will be set by the Ahuja class-action case is significant for both past events and future possibilities and is core to the discussion of policy involving the cryopreservation of gametes and embryos.

The Unconstitutionality Of The Protecting Access To Care Act Of 2017’S Cap On Noneconomic Damages In Medical Malpractice Cases, Kaeleigh P. Christie

Journal of Legislation

No abstract provided.

Doctors On The Take: Aligning Tort Law To Address Drug Company Payments To Prescribers, Lars Noah

Buffalo Law Review

The pharmaceutical and medical device industries aggressively market their wares to health care professionals, and the giving of gifts has become a central feature of this process. Most observers regard financial incentives tied to the use of specific therapeutic products as ethically impermissible, and various institutions have tried combating inappropriate gifts and payments to physicians: medical and industry groups adopted voluntary codes, federal agencies published advisory guidelines, and, most recently, state and federal legislatures enacted reporting laws. Self-regulation, threats of prosecution, and transparency initiatives have tempered the practice, but manufacturers continue to find clever ways of purchasing the loyalty of …

South Africa’S Historic Silicosis Class Action: Why The Settlement Matters, Penelope Andrews

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Whose Sperm Is It Anyways In The Wild, Wild West Of The Fertility Industry?, Tatiana E. Posada

Georgia State University Law Review

Imagine a couple that is unable to conceive a child naturally. Luckily, they had the money and resources available to them to conceive a child through assisted reproductive technology (ART), so they decided to start their family through the use of intrauterine insemination. They selected a sperm bank and began the arduous process of selecting a sperm donor who fit the desired traits and characteristics for their child. The sperm bank matched them with an anonymous donor, Donor 9623, and assured the couple that the donor was “a healthy male with an IQ of 160, a bachelor’s of science in …

Why Exempting Negligent Doctors May Reduce Suicide: An Empirical Analysis, John Shahar Dillbary, Griffin Edwards, Fredrick E. Vars

Indiana Law Journal

This Article is the first to empirically analyze the impact of tort liability on suicide. Counter-intuitively, our analysis shows that suicide rates increase when potential tort liability is expanded to include psychiatrists—the very defendants who would seem best able to prevent suicide. Using a fifty-state panel regression for 1981 to 2013, we find that states which allowed psychiatrists (but not other doctors) to be liable for malpractice resulting in suicide experienced a 9.3% increase in suicides. On the other hand, and more intuitively, holding non-psychiatrist doctors liable de-creases suicide by 10.7%. These countervailing effects can be explained by psychiatrists facing …

Don’T Let The Bed Bugs Bill: Landlord Liability For Bed Bug Infestations In Georgia, Megan M. Harrison

Georgia State University Law Review

Although the historical relationship between bed bugs and humans dates back to ancient Egypt, the common bed bug, or Cimex lectularius, vanished from the beds of Americans around World War II. In the late 1990s, however, our bloodsucking bedfellows returned. Bed bug infestations are a growing public health issue. Bed bugs are now found in all fifty states, with populations in five states reaching epidemic levels. Both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) consider bed bugs a “pest of significant public health importance."

Despite their name, bed bugs are not limited to …

2017 Annual Survey: Recent Developments In Sports Law, Jordan Lysiak, Katherine Hampel

Marquette Sports Law Review

None

The Failure Of “Sorry”: An Empirical Evaluation Of Apology Laws, Health Care, And Medical Malpractice, Benjamin J. Mcmichael

Lewis & Clark Law Review

As part of the effort to contain the size and frequency of medical malpractice claims, many states have adopted apology laws. These laws make apologies from physicians to patients inadmissible in any subsequent court proceedings. The basic rationale behind apology laws is that meritless malpractice claims are less likely to be filed when a physician can apologize to his or her patient without risking those statements being used in court. Through the use of a unique dataset, this Article corrects several misunderstandings concerning this new generation of tort reform.

First, it shows that while apology laws may reduce the frequency …

The Net Effects Of Medical Malpractice Tort Reform On Health Insurance Losses, W. Kip Viscusi, Patricia H. Born, J. Bradley Karl

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In this paper, we examine the influence of medical malpractice tort reform on the level of private health insurance company losses incurred. We employ a natural experiment framework centered on a series of tort reform measures enacted in Texas in 2003 that drastically altered the medical malpractice environment in the state. The results of a difference-in-differences analysis using a variety of comparison states, as well as a difference-in-difference-in-differences analysis, indicate that ameliorating medical malpractice risk has little effect on health insurance losses incurred by private health insurers.

Szymborski V. Spring Mtn. Treatment Ctr., 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 80 (Oct. 26, 2017), Paloma Guerrero

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined medical malpractice, and subsequent adherence to NRS 41A.071, involves a medical diagnosis, treatment, or judgment, and when the standards of care pertaining to the medical issue require explanation to the jury from a medical expert at trial. Therefore, Szymborski’s claims for negligence, malpractice, gross negligence, negligence per se, and negligent hiring, training, and supervision state claims for relief which were not based on a medical treatment or judgment and should not have been dismissed for failure to attach the NRS 41A.071 affidavit.

Access To Prescription Drugs: A Normative Economic Approach To Pharmacist Conscience Clause Legislation, Joanna K. Sax

Maine Law Review

Over the past several years, many states introduced legislation that protects a pharmacist’s decision to refuse to fill a prescription. Termed “conscience clauses,” these pieces of legislation allow a pharmacist to refuse to fill a prescription because of moral or religious objections without fear of legal repercussions. In 2006, for example, twenty-one states considered legislation that permits pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions; some bills focus on contraception alone, while others are not specific to any one type of medication. Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, and South Dakota have state laws that provide legal protection to pharmacists who refuse to fill …