Assessing Causation in Breast Implant Litigation: The Role of Science Panels

In two recent cases, federal judges appointed panels of scientific experts to help assess conflicting scientific testimony regarding causation of systemic injuries by silicone gel breast implants. This article will describe the circumstances that gave rise to the appointments, the procedures followed in making the appointments and reporting to the courts, and the reactions of the participants in the proceedings

Whither Notice Pleading?: Pleading Practice in the Days Before Twombly

Most scholars mark the end of notice pleading in federal civil cases at the time of the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly or, at the latest, at the Court’s 2009 decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal. Scholars have noted occasional departures from the notice pleading standard in more complex civil cases, but notice pleading has been thought to remain the prevalent practice in simple negligence cases. This Article examines two sets of complaints filed in federal district courts in 2006 in cases alleging injuries from simple automobile accidents. We find that notice pleading practice, as indicated by Form 11 in the Appendix of Forms that accompany the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, had already been abandoned in these routine cases before Twombly in favor of narrative pleading that provides a fuller expression of the factual context of the claim. If pleading practice did not follow the notice pleading standard before Twombly in simple negligence cases that had the benefit of specific Form 11 guidance, it is doubtful that attorneys adhered to notice pleading practice in other more complex federal civil cases. In this regard, our findings also raise doubts about the utility of Form 11. In discussing our findings, we also briefly explore the psychology of pleading and whether the emergence of narrative pleading was an unintended consequence of a series of amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure starting in the mid-1980s and intended to allow more effective judicial management of litigation. While the Twombly/Iqbal plausibility standard certainly presents a higher standard than notice pleading, the trend is clear: pleading additional facts beyond the requirements of notice pleading predated Twombly or Iqbal and lower courts had already started to abandon the notice pleading standard

Citizen Comprehension of Difficult Issues: Lessons from Civil Jury Trials

Lay participation in debates concerning public policies is a touchstone of a democracy. The Constitution enshrines this value not only by providing for a system of elected representatives, but also by recognizing the right to trial by jury. When a democratic society seeks to impose the rigors of the law on an individual, it must justify those standards to a panel of citizens and allow the austere expression of the law to become infused with the values of the community. Through this process, the vision of justice shared by members of the community informs the dialogue of adjudication. The increasing complexity of issues presented for adjudication causes some commentators to question the ability of civil juries to fulfill this traditional role. To reach a reasoned and principled judgment, lay representatives must comprehend technical information and apply the proper legal standard. In the past, concerns about the ability of laypersons to participate effectively arose in antitrust trials where civil juries encountered massive amounts of evidence and sophisticated economic arguments. Recently, similar concerns have arisen when civil juries consider technical evidence in toxic tort and product liability cases., Such concerns are likely to become more acute with the expansion of the right to trial by jury into statutory causes of action where juries consider complex questions of damages. Questions about the competence and bias of laypersons are also raised in nonjury contexts, such as in proposals to permit laypersons to participate more fully in regulatory proceedings that require an assessment of the risks and benefits to a community. We seek to address these concerns by reviewing the literature on jury competence with three purposes in mind. First, we hope to establish that, although the civil jury has some areas of vulnerability, its ability to render a reasoned and principled decision is far greater than typically acknowledged. Second, we wish to identify those areas in which laypersons encounter particular difficulties and suggest remedies to improve lay comprehension in these complex matters. Finally, we hope to draw upon research on the civil jury in assessing the potential for lay participation in regulatory proceedings. Thus, this Article aims to provide information about the civil jury\u27s functioning which may be used to evaluate the claims of proponents and opponents of lay participation in a wide range of complex legal proceedings

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead