In response to concerns that jury awards in tort cases are excessive and unpredictable, nearly every state legislature has enacted some version of tort reform that is intended to curb extravagant damage awards. One of the most important and controversial reforms involves capping (or limiting) the maximum punitive damage award. We conducted a jury analogue study to assess the impact of this refo...

Within the time span of 1 month in late 2009, three Federal courts in the USA issued decisions touching on the justiciability of nuisance and other common law tort claims relating to climate change. These cases demonstrate that Massachusetts v. EPA (the US Supreme Court Case involving the question of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs) un...

Policy implementation of hormesis has to date focused on regulatory applications. Toxic-tort litigation may provide an alternative policy venue for real-world applications of hormesis. Businesses and government entities, who are sued by individuals claiming to have been injured by exposure to very low levels of toxic substances may defend those cases by deploying hormesis to argue that such exp...

background: to determine the role of drugs in fatal overdose, analyses were done on samples obtained from autopsy examination and death and crime scene investigations. the aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of toxicology analyses of postmortem biological and non-biological samples belonging to a subject in determining the forensic cause of death. methods: toxicological analysis we...

This article explores the key issues involved in the attempts at reform of the present medical malpractice system. Investigating the effects that federal tort reform legislation would have on physicians, patients, lawyers, and the medical malpractice insurers, Dr. Gunnar succinctly outlines the issues surrounding the present "crisis in healthcare" and explores the separate interests involved. T...