SEARCH · PubMed Health

Results for “Litigation”

Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,765 records · Page 98Linked to original sources

PubMed2001

Fulfilling the bargain: how the science of ergonomics can inform the laws of workers' compensation.

In the last decade, cumulative trauma disorders have become a significant percentage of reported workplace injuries and litigated workers' compensation claims. Arising from the accumulated impact of daily work activities on the body, these injuries do not fall neatly within either the "accident" or "disease" categories which comprise workers' compensation laws. As a result, courts and legislatures have struggled to properly evaluate workers' compensation claims for these injuries. This Note looks at the legal treatment of cumulative trauma injuries in light of the "original bargain" of workers' compensation, where workers give up a tort remedy against their employers in exchange for guaranteed, but limited, compensation for work-related injuries. In doing so, this Note undertakes a comprehensive comparison of litigated cumulative trauma cases in the tort and workers' compensation systems. Ultimately, this Note argues that judges must use the original bargain as an interpretive less when deciding cumulative trauma cases, and points to ergonomics--the science of the workplace--as a significant new tool for determining whether such injuries are work-related.

Cumulative Trauma Disorders↗

PubMed1996

Postconcussive symptoms in craniofacial trauma.

In a private/institutional setting the prevalence of Postconcussive Syndrome (PCS) symptoms and related etiologic factors was surveyed in 122 concussion and other craniofacial trauma patients (mean age 32 years; 68% male) and 122 uninjured controls (mean age 21 years; 45% males). A Neurobehavioral Symptom Checklist was used to measure 44 self-related symptoms, summed to yield Overall Frequency; number of symptoms rated as 3 or 4 were also summed separately to yield High Frequency scores. The Concussion group had significantly greater Overall Frequency and High Frequency scores than the other patients and the controls. The Brain Damage group had significantly greater High Frequency (but not Overall Frequency) scores than the controls. The presence of litigation, unemployment, or middle-age yielded significantly greater Overall Frequency scores in the patients; these variables in the control group were not measured. The presence of craniofacial fractures had no effect. Results suggest PCS symptoms are greatest in concussion patients with the presence of litigation, unemployment or middle age, and are less affected by injury severity.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1987

DKT Memorial Fund v. Agency for International Development, 13 February 1987.

The plaintiffs, domestic and foreign nongovernmental organizations, challenged the lawfulness of the Agency for International Development's implementation of Government policy not to contribute funds to foreign nongovernmental organizations that perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning abroad. The Court reversed a lower court decision and held that the plaintiffs had standing to bring their suit. It ruled that the plaintiffs were not attempting to litigate a political question since they did not seek to litigate the political and social wisdom of the policy, but only its legality. It also allowed the plaintiffs to amend their complaint to state that, but for the policy, they would be qualified to receive funds. In a similar case, the United States District Court, S.D. New York, held that AID was acting within its statutory and administrative authority in withholding federal assistance to organizations that perform or actively promote abortions as a method of family planning and that the plaintiffs' constitutional challenge of this policy presented a nonjusticiable political question (Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. vs. Agency for International Development, 29 September 1987, [670 F.Supp. 538]).

Abortion, Induced↗

PubMed1975

Hospital committee proceedings and reports: their legal status.

This Article examines the legal status of hospital committee proceedings and reports, focusing on how they may be used in a medicolegal context. Specific topics dealt with include the hospital medical staff in legal perspective, the concept of institutional responsibility, liability considerations arising from committee work, and the discovery and admissiblity of committee records in litigation cases. The author concludes that the danger of committee members facing liability for their activities is slight and that the fear that these reports and proceedings may be subject to discovery or be admissible into evidence in subsequent litigation is remote because candid and conscientious evaluations of clinical practices within every institution are essential and, therefore, public policy must encourage such evaluations by maintaining the confidentiality of committee activities.

Jurisprudence↗

PubMed1975

The compensation experience of patients with chronic beryllium disease.

The experience of patients with chronic beryllium disease seeking workmen's compensation indicates that the system does not meet its intentions of providing for relief of workers for job-related illness. In the instance of beryllium disease there is undue delay in adjudication of the compensation. This delay has its origin in part from litigation over the diagnosis and disability on the part of private insurers and in part on failure of the IAB to press for findings. Moreover, the process of litigation and delay may produce significant psychological distress. For others the compensation for a chronic disability is inadequate. Whether compensation acts as a system of relief depends on whether the patient has a working husband or wife. Among the women here with beryllium disease, the system worked only to the extent that they could rely on their husbands. Compensation benefits should be provided in accord with rises in the cost of living index. Compensation boards should press for prompt settlement of claims.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

Illness behavior and psychosocial factors in diffuse upper limb pain disorder: a case-control study.

OBJECTIVE: To compare behavioral and other psychosocial factors in patients with diffuse upper limb pain disorder (ULPD) and patients with carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). METHODS: We compared 37 hospital outpatients with diffuse ULPD with 36 hospital outpatients with CTS, matched by sex, pain intensity, and duration of illness. We assessed psychiatric morbidity by a standardized interview, and both symptoms and personality by self-rated questionnaires. We measured illness behavior by assessing financial benefits and compensation, coping strategies, illness beliefs, treatments received, and 24 hours of monitoring movements of the most affected arm and the body as a whole. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in the prevalence of either current or premorbid psychiatric disorders, personality scores, symptom amplification, disability, or treatments received. Subjects with ULPD had significantly lower self-rated scores for depression, somatic distress, sleep disturbance, and physical fatigue than subjects with CTS, although there were more than normal levels of anxiety, fatigue, and sleep disturbance in both groups. There were no significant differences in the numbers of arm or body movements by day and night. Significantly more ULPD subjects had been involved in litigation, but litigating patients were a minority. CONCLUSION: The primary etiology of endemic diffuse ULPD, presenting in secondary care, is no more psychiatric, psychological, behavioral, or related to personality than is the case with a similarly chronic and painful condition of known pathology. We cannot exclude either a specific role for psychosocial factors at work, or a more general role for psychosocial factors in maintaining disability in patients with chronic pain.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed1992

A critical view of the rationale for routine, initial and periodic radiographic surveys.

Most dentists and dental faculties use an initial radiographic survey for the comprehensive-care patient rather than selective radiography, as recommended by professional organizations and radiation protection agencies. Survey or screening radiography has been justified in the belief that it is an essential health service designed to disclose serious occult disease and that failure to use such films might expose the dentist to successful malpractice litigation. However, incidence data indicate the chance of disclosing tumors, non-inflammatory cysts or other serious bone disease in the asymptomatic patient by screening jaw films is infinitesimal. On this basis, the practice is not justifiable as a public health measure, nor is the dentist who follows published national guidelines for prescription radiography vulnerable to successful litigation.

Canada↗

PubMed1992

Neurologist as expert witness.

Prevailing liberal rules of evidence permit qualified medical and scientific experts to offer opinions designed to help courts decide issues to which their expertise relates. The opinions can be based on direct examinations, review of data assembled by others and data or inferences of a type relied on by other experts in the field. Application of these rules is illustrated through analysis of expert testimony in litigation involving a neurologic syndrome allegedly caused by an immunization and in a case involving controversy over the extent and outcome of major brain injury. Concerns about misuse of expert medical and scientific testimony in litigation are addressed. The article closes with a consideration of approaches designed to improve the reliability of expert testimony.

Brain Damage, Chronic↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Causality link in criminal law: role of epidemiology].

This paper focusses on the role of epidemiology in demonstrating causality in criminal trials of toxic tort litigation. First of all, consideration is given of the specificity of the criminal trial and of the role of the epidemiologist as expert witness. As a second step the concept of causality is examined separating general from specific (individual level) causality. As regards general causality, strategies based on some criteria (example: Bradford-Hill criteria) are contrasted with approaches that do not consider causality a matter of science but one of health policy; and specific methods frequently used (meta-analysis, risk assessment, International Boards evaluation,....) are discussed, with special reference to the adoption of high-level standards and to the context of cross-examination. As regards individual level causality the difficulties of the epidemiologic approach to such evaluation are stressed, with special reference to topics like expected value, attributable risk, and probability of causation. All examples are taken from Italian court trials. A general comment on the difficulties of using the criminal trial (dominated by the "but for" rule) for toxic tort litigation and on the opportunity to switch to trials (civil, administrative) with less stringent causal rules ("more probable than not") is offered, with a consideration also of what are called "class actions".

Causality↗

PubMed1996

Identification of malingered head injury on the Halstead-Reitan battery.

Heaton et al. (1978) demonstrated that the performance of malingerers and actual head trauma patients could be distinguished on the HRB by discriminant analysis. The present study replicated Heaton et al.'s methodology on a larger sample to provide a more stable function for discriminating simulated and real head trauma. Malingerers (n = 80) were instructed to fake severe deficits without being obvious. Patients (n = 80) had documented trauma and were not litigating for compensation. Groups were matched on age, gender, and overall Impairment Index to permit comparisons between patterns of performance. A crossvalidated step-wise discriminant function correctly identified 88.75% of the groups, with 83.8% true positives and 93.8% true negatives. This function was applied to several published data sets. Both malingerer and patient groups were accurately identified in Heaton et al. (1978) and Trueblood and Schmidt (1993). Faust et al.'s (1988) adolescent malingerer and the malingered performance of three litigating patients published by Cullum et al. (1991), were also correctly classified.

Journal Article↗

PubMed1996

Comparison of multiple scoring methods for Rey's malingered amnesia measures.

The predictive accuracy of Andre Rey's malingered amnesia measures (Memory for Fifteen Items and Word Recognition List) was examined. Discriminant function and crosstabulation analytic strategies were applied to predict membership in either a traumatically brain injured group (n = 60) or in a litigated minor head injury group claiming permanent severe disability (n = 90). Satisfactory hit rates were achieved with Rey's original scoring methods, but improved hit rates were obtained with scoring modifications. Removal of dense amnesiacs from the sample resulted in even better hit rates. Rey's measures appear to be valid for the assessment of cognitive malingering in settings where litigated disability claims are out of proportion to injury characteristics. Rey's measures are not appropriate for globally and severely impaired patients in clinical settings.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2003

A validation of multiple malingering detection methods in a large clinical sample.

The purpose of this study is to further previous research that has shown that common neuropsychological tests can do "double duty" as test of motivation/malingering. Using a large clinical sample of 796 participants, it was found that the nine neuropsychological tests (when used together) were able to correctly identify litigant and nonlitigating groups. Failure on any two of the malingering tests suggested motivational/malingering issues. The groups consisted of mild, moderate, and severe traumatic brain-injured patients; chronic pain, depressed, community controls, and "malingering actors." Institutionalized and noninstitutionalized patient performance were also examined. This method showed 83% sensitivity and 100% specificity. A 0% false positive rate was found, suggesting good reliability especially in litigating settings. A group of patients for whom this method of motivational assessment might not be appropriate was also identified.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

MMPI-2 indices of psychological disturbance and attention and memory test performance in head injury.

A number of studies have investigated the relationship between psychological disturbance and neuropsychological (NP) test performance. The current study is a replication and extension of who found that MMPI-2 indices of psychological disturbance are related to performance on NP tests of attention and memory in psychiatric and head-injured patients. In a large sample (N=381) referred for evaluation after sustaining presumed head injury, we examined the relationship between MMPI-2 indices of psychological disturbance and measures of attention and memory from the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R), Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R), California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT), and the Memory Assessment Scales (MAS). Although related to other domains, MMPI-2 variables were most consistently related to measures of attention and List Learning. Even when demographic variables, injury severity, and litigation status were controlled, MMPI-2 indices significantly predicted performance on six out of eight tests. However, the correspondence between similar indices on the WMS-R and MAS were relatively low, especially for Verbal Memory and Visual Reproduction. Further, litigation was significant in predicting only 2 of 8 attention and memory indices.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Severe newborn encephalopathy unrelated to intrapartum hypoxic events: 3 case reports.

INTRODUCTION: Newborn encephalopathy is an important clinical problem associated with considerable morbidity and mortality and is pertinent in the assignment of blame in obstetrics litigation. CLINICAL PICTURE: We report 3 babies with severe neonatal encephalopathy. OUTCOME: In all 3 cases, intrapartum hypoxic insult was unlikely to be a significant contributing factor towards the development of neonatal encephalopathy. The aetiology was unclear in the first 2 cases and there was antecedent antenatal cause of feto-maternal haemorrhage in the last case. CONCLUSION: Prevention of neonatal encephalopathy was not possible in these 3 cases. We recommend that umbilical cord blood gases be clearly documented in such cases to reduce unnecessary obstetrics litigation of intrapartum asphyxia as the significant contributing factor to the poor neonatal outcome. Clinicians must have a high index of suspicion of antecedent causes and perform the necessary investigations to elucidate the aetiology of the neonatal encephalopathy.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Digital radiography and electronic data storage from the perspective of legal requirements for record keeping.

In some countries physicians and dentists are required by law to keep medical and dental records. These records not only serve as personal notes and memory aids but have to be in accordance with the necessary standard of care and may be used as evidence in litigation. Inadequate, incomplete or even missing records can lead to reversal of the burden of proof, resulting in a dramatically reduced chance of successful defence in litigation. The introduction of digital radiography and electronic data storage presents a new problem with respect to legal evidence, since digital data can easily be manipulated and industry is now required to provide adequate measures to prevent manipulations and forgery.

Computer Security↗

PubMed2003

[Child psychiatric documentation in child visitation and custody disputes--results of a survey].

In the last decade, increasing divorce rates, a joint custodial concept, and a deficient legal situation of non-married fathers have been involuntarily provoking cases of a parent with child custody alienating that child in order to exclude the other parent from visitations and educational participation. Medical certificates are frequently of fateful importance in child custody litigation. In an mail survey conduced in six German cities, N = 133 child psychiatrists were asked about the frequency in which they issue such certificates, what certificates contained, what recommendations were made, and where possible the reasons why the other parent was not included in the diagnostic process. According to the results 74.4% of those surveyed were asked to issue such medical certificates at least once in the year prior to the survey; 42% of the psychiatrists stating that the other parent never or only sometimes participated. The symptoms most frequently certified were behavioural disorders (46%), aggression (34%), problems in school/ADD (28%), anxiety (26%), bed-wetting (23%), depression (21%), and psychosomatic reactions (20%). Outlining the characteristics of alienated children and of alienating parents, of "natural" and of "induced" stress-symptoms in children after parental separation, the article provides physicians and institutions of the health system with support to prevent medical certificates being abused in child custody litigation. Some fundamental guidelines are presented as to what aspects and should be explored and which persons referred to before certificates are issued to parents, social workers or judges of family law courts.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Barcelona 2002: law, ethics, and human rights. Using the law to improve access to treatments.

The XIII International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa in July 2000 focused worldwide attention on the problem of accessing treatments in developing countries. In the interim, thanks to the work of activists - from demonstrations to court cases, and from acts of public courage by people living with HIV/AIDS to ongoing lobbying of politicians and trade negotiators - some very significant developments have occurred. But the reality is that the vast majority of people living with HIV/AIDS still lack access to affordable, quality medicines. This article, a summary of a paper presented at "Putting Third First: Vaccines, Access to Treatments and the Law," a satellite meeting held at Barcelona on 5 July 2002 and organized by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, the AIDS Law Project, South Africa, and the Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit, India, explores three approaches for improving access. In the first part, Richard Elliott provides an overview of the state of the right to health as embodied in international human rights law; comments on the experience to date in litigating claims to the right to health; and identifies potential strategies activists can adopt to advance recognition of the right to health. In the second part, Sharan Parmar and Vivek Divan describe price-control and drug-financing mechanisms used by industrialized countries to increase the affordability of medicines; and discuss how some of these mechanisms could be adapted for use in developing countries. Finally, Jonathan Berger describes the use of litigation in the courts by the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa.

Anti-HIV Agents↗

PubMed1992

Asbestos exposure and psychic injury--a review of 48 claims.

Asbestos exposure has been a common occupational risk resulting in much litigation. Where pulmonary dysfunction has been minimal or even absent, psychic injury has been made an element in claimed damages. Analysis of psychiatric and psychologic claims in 48 cases reveals that diagnoses often do not conform to professional standards, are based on insufficient data sampling, lack adequate overall history as well as medical history, and do not comport with the standard of probability usually required for litigation. The group studied was elderly (mean age--62.6), mostly retired (71%), with some significant medical illnesses (18% on medical retirement). None were retired for pulmonary reasons. As expected, conflict in opinion between the opposing professional medical participants was frequent. Commonly the patients did not substantiate the complaints reported in the medico-legal reports; some ridiculed statements made on their behalf. Many psychological reports reflected simplistic or erroneous concepts of medicine or ignored relevant medical data. This study indicates that in this group claims of psychic injury due to asbestos exposure have little justification and supports the view that the current system of utilization of expert opinions is not reliable or in conformity with reasonable professional standards. Correspondingly, these claims did not result in augmented awards.

Adult↗