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

在有毒物质侵权诉讼中引入科学证据的可采性标准应该是什么，这一问题提出了重大的伦理、法律、制度和科学政策问题。此外，在案件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考虑到法官所遵循的机构程序以及有毒物质侵权法所需的科学证据的性质和数量。这项跨学科的建议汇集了毒理学和哲学学科的个人资料，以进行科学和哲学研究，审查法院如何处理证据的接纳和排除问题。首先，调查人员提议解决自美国最高法院对Daubert诉Merrell Dow制药公司的裁决以来，大约10个主要联邦上诉法院案件及其地区法院先例的经验性问题，其中一种物质的人体毒性受到质疑：(I)在专家证词的可采性问题上，案件中的科学证据是如何处置的？以及，ii)法官对他们的决定给出了什么理由？三)关于科学证据的裁决的准确性可以推断出什么？关于涉及一)和二)的主要上诉案件的初步工作已经完成；关于三)的工作正在进行中。其次，他们提议对科学推论进行实质性调查--在审判时，被质疑的专家提议作证的科学证据是什么？这至少分成了两个独立的问题。A)从法律的角度来看，专家从她自己的证据中得出的推论表明了什么；在考虑到该领域中受人尊敬的少数人意见的情况下，所提出的推论是否足以满足基于科学理由的可否受理考虑？B)鉴于文献中在审判时可获得的科学证据，一名专家能像有关专家那样体面地作证吗？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在对案件中的科学问题做出裁决时的准确性：i)他们的裁决是否表明他们对做出科学推理时可能存在的各种推理错误相对敏感，ii)他们的裁决是否是不对称地偏袒他们的裁决中的一方或另一方，以及iii)他们的裁决对于承认和排除影响诉讼当事人和程序公平性的证据有什么影响。最后，研究将回到与科学与法律相互作用的相关哲学问题上。在科学和法律的界面上回答这些重要问题将有助于揭示一些关键问题：科学和法律的互动对有毒侵权诉讼当事人的公正对待的影响，有毒侵权行为法对科学证据微妙的敏感性，以及侵权法中的制度伦理问题。

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.