A Philosophic and Scientific Assessment of the Use of Scientific Evidence in Toxic Tort Law

对有毒侵权法中科学证据的使用进行哲学和科学评估

• 批准号: 9910952
• 负责人: Carl Cranor
• 金额: $ 16万
• 依托单位: University of California-Riverside
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-07-01 至 2004-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9910952&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Philosophic; Scientific; Assessment; Use; Evidence

The question of what admissibility standards should govern the introduction of scientific evidence in toxic tort litigation raises major ethical, legal, institutional and science policy issues. Moreover, how much scientific evidence is demanded before a case can go forward is a philosophical issue requiring consideration of the nature of scientific evidence and the tort law's evidentiary procedures, as well as the effects of these decisions on ordinary citizens and on affected firms. Addressing these issues will contribute to discussion conceming the institutional procedures that judges follow and the nature and amount of scientific evidence required for toxic tort law. This interdisciplinary proposal brings together PIs from the disciplines of toxicology and philosophy to pursue scientific and philosophic research that examines how courts address the admission and exclusion of evidence. First, the investigators propose to address empirical questions for about 10 leading federal appellate court cases and their district court antecedents since the US Supreme Court decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where the human toxicity of a substance was in question: (i) What was the disposition of the scientific evidence in the case on issues of admissibility of expert testimony? And, ii) What reasons did the judges give for their decisions? iii) What can be inferred about the accuracy of rulings on scientific evidence? Preliminary work on the leading appellate cases addressing i) and ii) is done; work on iii) is in progress. Second, they propose a substantive inquiry about scientific inferences--at the time of trial, what was the scientific evidence on which the challenged expert proposed to testify? This breaks into at least two separate issues. a) From a legal point of view what does the expert's inference from her own evidence show; was it sufficient as presented to satisfy admissibility considerations on scientific grounds, taking account of respectable minority views in the field? b) Given the scientific evidence available at the time of trial in the literature could an expert have respectably testified as did the expert in question? The answers to these questions will be checked against the peer judgment of independent scientists. Third, the researchers seek to assess judges' accuracy in ruling on the scientific issues in the cases: i) whether their rulings suggest they are relatively sensitive to the various reasoning errors that might exist in drawing scientific inferences, ii) whether their rulings asymmetrically favor one side or another in their decisions, and iii) what is the effect of their rulings for admitting and excluding evidence that affects the litigants and the fairness of the process. Finally, the investigation will return to the pertinent philosophic issues concerning the science-law interaction. Answering these important questions at the interface of science and law will shed light on a number of critical issues: on the impact of the science/law interaction on the just treatment of toxic tort litigants, on the sensitivity of toxic tort law to the evidentiary subtleties of science, and on institutional ethics issues in tort law.

在有毒物质侵权诉讼中引入科学证据的可采性标准问题提出了重大的伦理、法律的、制度和科学政策问题。 此外，在一个案件可以继续进行之前需要多少科学证据是一个哲学问题，需要考虑科学证据的性质和侵权法的证据程序，以及这些决定对普通公民和受影响公司的影响。 解决这些问题将有助于讨论法官遵循的制度程序以及有毒物质侵权法所需的科学证据的性质和数量。 这个跨学科的提案汇集了来自毒理学和哲学学科的PI，以进行科学和哲学研究，研究法院如何处理证据的接纳和排除。首先，自美国最高法院对Daubert诉Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals，Inc.案做出裁决以来，调查人员提议解决大约10起主要联邦上诉法院案件及其地区法院先例的经验问题。，（i）在专家证词的可接受性问题上，案件中的科学证据如何处理？以及，ii）法官为他们的决定给出了什么理由？（三）关于科学证据裁决的准确性可以推断出什么？处理（一）和（二）的主要上诉案件的初步工作已经完成;（三）的工作正在进行中。 其次，他们提出了一个关于科学推论的实质性调查-在审判时，被质疑的专家提出作证的科学证据是什么？这至少分为两个不同的问题。（a）从法律的观点来看，专家从其自身证据中得出的推论表明了什么;所提出的推论是否足以满足基于科学理由的可受理性考虑，同时考虑到该领域中受人尊敬的少数人的观点？B）鉴于文献中在审判时可获得的科学证据，一名专家是否可以像有关专家那样体面地作证？这些问题的答案将与独立科学家的同行判断进行核对。第三，研究人员试图评估法官对案件中科学问题的裁决的准确性：i）他们的裁决是否表明他们对在作出科学推论时可能存在的各种推理错误相对敏感，ii）他们的裁决是否不对称地有利于他们的决定中的一方或另一方，及iii）法庭就接纳及排除影响诉讼人及程序公平性的证据所作的裁决有何影响。 最后，考察将回到科学与法学互动的相关哲学问题。在科学和法律的接口，这些重要的问题将揭示一些关键问题：对影响的科学/法律的相互作用，对有毒物质侵权诉讼当事人的公正对待，对有毒物质侵权法的敏感性，科学的证据的微妙之处，并在侵权法的制度伦理问题。