Medical Jurisprudence Commons^™

Radiation Injury: A Technical And Legal Survey, Andrew J. Humphrey

Cleveland State Law Review

In the field of radiation damage much has been written and many scientific opinions have been given. As to legal decisions,there is much to criticize from a technical point of view in the early X-ray cases, particularly in regard to the leeway allowed to physicians in treating their patients through use of a new tool. The following survey is intended to serve to give to the lawyer a basic working knowledge of the subject of radiation. With this, plus knowledge of general principles of law, common sense should enable him to get his client's point across to the judge and …

Postmortem Examinations, S.R. Gerber

Cleveland State Law Review

Postmortem examination is frequently considered to be a synonymous term for autopsy. However, literally any examination performed after death is a postmortem examination. All examinations of cases received at coroners' offices are performed postmortem. These examinations vary in extent, depending upon the circumstances and developments disclosed upon investigation by police and others.

The Pathologist And The Autopsy, Lawrence J. Mccormack

Cleveland State Law Review

The autopsy, properly performed, remains one of the keystones of modern medicine. However, obtaining the legally required consent or authorization for a medical autopsy can be a complex, almost impossible task. Simplification of the legal requirements for consent throughout the United States would be a definite step forward for medicine, and would benefit society generally.

Mental Competency And Mental Hospitals, Ewing H. Crawfis

Cleveland State Law Review

Psychiatrists generally are aware that there is not necessarily any relation between competency and hospitalization for mental illness. The consensus seems to be that these two things should be considered entirely separately. Many patients may need mental hospital care, without having suffered any impairment of their competency. My personal estimate is that 75% of all patients admitted to the average mental hospital could be considered to be competent. Also, it is well to keep in mind that an individual may require a guardian because of incompetency due to a mental disorder, but not require hospitalization in a mental hospital. Unfortunately, …

Court Dictation Of Choice Of Anesthesia, Carl E. Wasmuth

Cleveland State Law Review

The Supreme Court of California has extended the interpretation of the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur in malpractice cases so that the physician must now be nearly a guarantor of results. And a review of a few recent, specific cases involving anesthesia makes it increasingly evident that they may have far-reaching influence on the practice of anesthesiology.

Physician's View Of Whiplash Injuries Of The Neck, Paul A. Nelson

Cleveland State Law Review

Whiplash injuries of the neck as the result of automobile accidents have attracted increased attention in recent years from both the medical and legal professions. The incidence of such injuries has risen steadily, paralleling the increase in the number of automobiles and in the number of accidents on our highways. Unfortunately, effective safety measures or changes in automobile design that might prevent or minimize these injuries have not yet been introduced. Because most whiplash injuries involve compensation and many entail litigation, the correct management of such cases both medically and legally is of considerable economic importance.

Radiographic Aspects Of Whiplash Injury Of The Cervical Spine, Robert R. Wise

Cleveland State Law Review

While the mechanism of sudden forceful flexion or extension of the neck producing injuries to the ligaments bones, and nerves of the neck has long been known, the term "whiplash injury" appears not to have been used in the medical literature until 1945 when it was first used by Davis. In his paper he analyzed 134 injuries of the cervical spine resulting from automobile accidents. Since then the term has been used to designate injuries to the neck or cervical spine which result from sudden forward or backward motion of the head, excluding the obviously catastrophic injuries resulting in complete …

The Law Of Criminal Abortion: An Analysis Of Proposed Reforms

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Medical Evaluation Of Mental Pain And Suffering, Carl E. Wasmuth

Cleveland State Law Review

What the attorney calls "mental pain and suffering" and emotional disturbance is identified by the physician as stress, a concept easier to appreciate than to define. The term was probably borrowed from the language of the engineer. Selye, the chief proponent of the term in medicine, employs it to describe the effects of external influences upon the human mind and body. The lawyer seeking damages for his client on the basis of mental and emotional disturbances (mental "pain and suffering") finds proof difficult. Until the sciences supply an accurate measure of mental and emotional disturbances due to stress, the legal …

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.

Consent To Surgical Procedures, Carl E. Wasmuth

Cleveland State Law Review

Case law relating to surgical consent is fairly well settled. A review of the numerous decisions on this question can be summed up with a general statement: If the patient freely consults the physician, understands the operation contemplated, enters the hospital, and submits to the operation, consent is implied. This consent to a surgical operation is a privilege that the patient extends to the surgeon to commit trespass to the person.

Hospital Immunity, Ellis B. Brannon

Cleveland State Law Review

An archaic rule has been modified in Ohio by the Supreme Court decision in Avellone v. St. John's Hospital. However, this decision leaves open the question of whether the Ohio Supreme Court will apply the New York Rule to hospital liability in Ohio, or whether it will apply a less restrictive rule of liability to hospitals in this State. Essentially, the question is whether the hospital will be held responsible for all acts of negligence of its agents occurring within the physical confines of hospital premises, or whether it will be excluded from liability in those instances where the act …

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 …

Whiplash Injuries Of The Neck, Kenneth H. Abbott

Cleveland State Law Review

The nomenclature, mechanics, pathology and symptomatology of the minor injuries to the neck incurred in the socalled whiplash injury are reviewed. The common mechanism of this injury is shown to be hyperextension with recoil into hyperflexion, causing a sprain, of the soft tissues of the neck. In the more seriously injured, there may occur tearing and even avulsion of capsular and ligamentous structures of the neck. With injury to nerves and blood vessels, associated head and lower back injuries may also occur. Less commonly bony fractures of the neck vertebrae may be found. Attention is given to the delayed symptoms …

Book Reviews, John P. Frank, Malcolm P. Sharp, Edward S. Stimson, Oliver Schroeder Jr., Clarence J. Morrow, Bertram K. Wolfe, Malcolm D. Talbott, William H. Agnor, Clarence M. Updegraff

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Juridical Trauma And Medical Shock, Henry H. Foster Jr.

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Abstracts Of Recent Cases, T. E. P.

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Labor Law And Workmen's Compensation -- 1956 Tennessee Survey, Paul H. Sanders, James G. Bowman, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Labor Law

Inducing Breach of Contract: Howard v. Haven' was the only case during the survey period which presented a legal problem relating to the activities of a labor organization. In this case an electrical contractor sought an injunction and damages because of the acts of a local labor union, its business agent, and other named defendants in preventing the plaintiff from carrying out a hospital construction contract. On the trial of the case the determinative issue became whether or not the defendants brought about a breach of the contract which the complainant claimed to have had with the general …

Involuntary Psychiatry In Nova Scotia: The Review Board Reports (1979-1983) And Recent Proposals For Legislative Change, H Archibald Kaiser

Dalhousie Law Journal

The Nova Scotia Psychiatric Facilities Review Board, appointed under s. 53 of the Hospitals Act1, fulfils many vital functions affecting the treatment and liberty of the patient involuntarily confined in the psychiatric hospitals of the Province.2 Although its proceedings are held in camera,3 the Board fortunately publishes an Annual Report which is tabled in the House of Assembly.4 Neither lay persons aor lawyers are likely to scrutinize these documents and this Comment is intended in part to redress this regrettable disregard as well as to offer some critical remarks. They contain material which will both hearten and disturb the reader, …

Psychiatric Challenge Of Witnesses, Thomas E. Watts Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Although insane' persons were incompetent as witnesses at early common law, the modern view is that the effect of mental illness upon competency is a preliminary question for the court in the absence of contrary statutory direction. An insane person is generally said to be a competent witness if he can understand the sanctions imposed to elicit the truth and can correctly recount the occurrence which is the subject of his testimony. Some courts exclude evidence of insanity offered for purposes of impeachment but most courts admit such evidence, treating medical and lay testimony with equal respect because of the …

Book Reviews, Dix W. Noel, E. M. Morgan, J. Olin White, Samuel E. Stumpf

Vanderbilt Law Review

Book Reviews

Handbook of the Law of Torts, 2d ed. By William L. Prosser St.Paul: West Publishing Company, 1955. Pp. xii, 952. $10.00

reviewer: Dix W. Noel

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Impartial Medical Testimony A Report by a Special'Committee of The Association of the Bar of the City of New York New York: The Macmillan Company, 1956- Ppr. ix, 188: $3.95.

reviewer: E.M. Morgan

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Modern Trials By Melvin M. Belli Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, Inc., Three Volumes, 1955. Pp. 2,763. $50.00.

reviewer: J. Olin White

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Law and Morality By Leon Petrazycki (Translated by Hugh W.Babb with an Introduction by Nicholas S. Timasheff) Cambridge: …

Hospital Tort Liability, Aaron Jacobson

Cleveland State Law Review

Public Benefit Activities of a hospital, university or welfare agency have been looked upon with special favor by the law for many decades-a genuine kind of legalistic paternalism. They being institutions of beneficent motive, the policy of the judiciary has been to aid them through notable departures from the rules. Arguments to the contrary met a stone wall of "public policy." One such departure is exemplified in the immunity from liability for the tortious conduct of their employees that hospitals have enjoyed. Thus, a patient injured through negligence while in the care of a hospital often had no recourse, no …

The Physician-Patient Privilege, T. B. M.

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Weihofen: Mental Disorder As A Criminal Defense, Winfred Overholser M.D.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Mental Disorder as a Criminal Defense. By Henry Weihofen.

Criminal Law - Reexamination Of Tests For Criminal Responsibility, Mary Lee Ryan

Michigan Law Review

Criminal law in the Anglo-American system of jurisprudence is based upon the concept that persons should be held responsible for their acts. A strong corrollary to this idea is that certain types of persons, namely the "insane," should not be held responsible for criminal conduct. Although this proposition seems beautifully simple, courts in England and the United States for over a hundred years have wrestled with the problem of what constitutes insanity, or, to phrase it more accurately, what type of mental condition should preclude responsibility for a criminal act.

Evidence - Validity Of Statutory Presumption Of Intoxication From A Finding Of 0.15 Percent Concentration Of Alcohol In The Blood, Donald F. Oosterhouse S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Defendant was tried and convicted of the statutory crime of driving an automobile while under the influence of intoxicating liquor. The state introduced into evidence the result of a blood test, voluntarily submitted to by the defendant, which showed 0,20% concentration of alcohol in the defendant's blood. Arizona statutes established a rebuttable presumption of no intoxication if such tests showed a concentration of 0.05%, or less, of alcohol in one's blood, and of intoxication if the tests showed a concentration of 0.15%, or more. Breath, urine, and direct blood tests are authorized by the statute. Defendant argued that the statute …

Workmen's Compensation - Traumatic Neurosis Without Physical Injury, Irving L. Halpern

Michigan Law Review

Appellee and his co-worker attempted to lower a suspended scaffold on which they were standing, whereupon the scaffold gave way and the coworker fell to his death. Appellee suffered only slight bruises on his leg, but as a result of seeing his fellow employee fall to his death, he sustained severe fright and shock which resulted in a traumatic neurosis preventing him from engaging in the normal duties of his occupation. The lower court awarded appellee judgment for permanent partial disability under the Texas Workmen's Compensation Law. On appeal, held, reversed. Appellee's condition was a mental disease and compensable …

Hospitalization Of The Voluntary Mental Patient, Hugh A. Ross

Michigan Law Review

In 1949, the last year for which accurate statistics are available, 390,567 persons were admitted to mental hospitals in the United States. Total annual cost of mental illness, including loss of earnings, has been estimated to be over a billion dollars a year. Although the problems involved in admission of the mentally ill patient to a hospital are usually thought of in terms of formal involuntary commitment proceedings, there is an increasing awareness of the desirability of provision for voluntary procedures which would encourage prompt and effective medical care. Voluntary admission is not a form of commitment, although it may …

Torts - Liability Of Physician Erroneously Certifying Insanity, Richard Z. Rosenfeld

Michigan Law Review

A physician certified plaintiff to be insane, when in fact she was sane; she was thereafter committed to a state sanitarium. Upon her release, she sued the physician for negligence in examination. Defendant's demurrer for failure to state a cause of action was sustained. On appeal, held, affirmed. Quoting almost the entirety of an analogous 1900 decision from the same jurisdiction, the court held that defendant had owed no duty to plaintiff. Because the administration of the law "should not be obstructed by the fears of physicians that they may render themselves liable to suit," certifying physicians "should be …

Evidence - Statutory Rape - Right Of Accused To Compulsory Blood Test Of Prosecutrix And Child, Edward Pastucha S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Defendant was convicted of statutory rape on the strength of complaining witness' uncorroborated testimony. Testimony of the prosecutrix was to the effect that she had had sexual relations with defendant only once, that she had become pregnant and had given birth to a child prior to the trial, and that she had had sexual relations with no other men. Defendant moved for an order requiring that blood tests be taken of the child and the mother. The motion was denied. On appeal, held, affirmed. Assuming power, absent statute, to compel the taking of blood-grouping tests, the trial court did …