Products Liability Cases on Appeal: An Empirical Study

This article analyzes 1,100 opinions to find the determinants of products liability cases on appeal in state and federal courts. The strongest predictor of plaintiff success on appeal is whether the plaintiff prevailed in a jury trial. Other important factors are the defendant\u27s status as manufacturer, wholesaler, or successor corporation; the plaintiffs degree of injury; and whether the case involved a failure-to-warn claim. The existence of a comparative negligence regime increases the tendency of appellate courts to affirm lower courts. These results allow rejection of a simple model in which pre- and posttrial settlement behavior filters out cases in which the results are clear. Under such a model, only a residue of close cases remains with no clear reason to expect results highly favorable either to products liability plaintiffs or defendants. Despite the importance of the processes that filter appeals, some identifiable factors still influence appeals

Inside the Quiet Revolution in Products Liability

A bullet in the head of products liability reform. Thus did a lobbyist orally characterize our article in this law review, The Quiet Revolution in Products Liability, describing declining plaintiff success in products liability cases in the 1980s. From the coverage and criticism the Quiet Revolution received around the country and around the world, the trends we discovered struck many as surprising enough to be newsworthy and others as sufficiently threatening to warrant a special response. Products liability\u27s sustained presence on state and federal legislative agendas warrants continuing and expanding the study begun in the Quiet Revolution. This Article substantially augments our earlier sketch of national products liability trends in the 1980s. Major new endeavors include extending the analysis of trends to more recent years, reconciling some of the ambiguities in interpreting the observed trends, and describing and analyzing trends in the size of products liability case awards. The additional data confirm the earlier findings of declining plaintiff success rates, with the trends even more definite in the late 1980s. New surprises also emerge. Despite a widespread impression of ever-increasing awards in products cases, evidence of recent declining real-dollar awards is about as persuasive as is evidence of increasing awards. Combining success rate trends and award trends shows products liability in decline since 1985. By most measures, products liability\u27s impact at the end of the 1980s had returned to about where it was at the beginning of the decade. Moving beyond describing and interpreting the national trends, we also examine the sources of defendants\u27 increasing success. The 1980s pro-defendant movement is not the result of sharp reversals in a few jurisdictions; rather, it is truly national, with most states showing defendant success rate increases in the second half of the 1980s. Nor did the national trend result from shifts in a relatively few important products categories. As best we can tell, the trend spans nearly all nonasbestos products lines. Legislative reforms do appear to have contributed; but even in non-reform states, the success rate of products cases has declined. A widespread, independent shift in judicial attitudes continues to be the likely major source of the decline. This general shift in attitude suggests that the tort reform movement of the 1970s and 1980s may have succeeded in a broader sense even if it failed to achieve many of its more specific legislative goals. As part of the case for reform legislation, tort reformers sought to reshape public opinion about products liability law. They successfully linked products liability cases to the mid-1980s insurance crisis; this linkage may have persuaded individual judges, as it tried to convince the public, that reform was needed. The judicial perception of the need for reform may have depressed plaintiffs\u27 success rates

The Quiet Revolution in Products Liability: An Empirical Study of Legal Change

Most revolutions are noisy, tumultuous affairs. This is as true of significant shifts in legal doctrine as it is of shifts of political power through force of arms. The pro-plaintiff revolution in products liability in the early 1960s will forever be associated with heroic, martial images, epitomized in Prosser\u27s description of the assault upon, and fall of, the fortressed citadel of privity. In contrast to these noisy, exuberant events, the revolution to which we refer has gone all but unnoticed. In fact, some followers of the products liability wars will find our hypothesis so contrary to currently shared wisdom as to warrant its summary rejection. This quiet revolution is a significant turn in the direction of judicial decision making away from extending the boundaries of products liability and toward placing significant limitations on plaintiffs\u27 rights to recover in tort for product-related injuries. Our objective in this Article is to show that changes in judicial decision making are occurring and that current trends favor defendants. The endeavor is important for two reasons. First, this study shows that since the early to mid-1980s policymakers and industry leaders have been operating from questionable, if not false, premises. Industry leaders have characterized products liability lawyers and clients as a plague of locusts, who have brought a blood bath for U.S. business and are distorting our traditional values. The overall impression is one of an area of judge-made law on the rise, threatening to engulf the legal system, harming industry, and requiring legislative reaction to reign in judges. This Article shows, however, that even before many of the reforms were in effect, products liability had turned an important corner. The judges whom state legislatures sought to reign in had already begun a trend of doctrinal change favoring defendants. The second major reason for considering the quiet revolution is more purely academic. The study and testing of the theory of legal change is maturing. In an article suggesting the shallowness of many assertions of legal change, George Priest raises important methodological questions about whether and how legal change can be detected. This Article is a rare effort to combine comprehensive, national empirical studies of both appellate and trial court activity to support the assertion of changing legal doctrine. It thus represents one possible, though largely untried, approach to the study of legal change

SPECT Functional Neuroimaging Distinguishes Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder From Healthy Controls in Big Data Imaging Cohorts

Background: The diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) relies on history and observation, as no reliable biomarkers have been identified. In this study, we compared a large single diagnosis group of patients with ADHD (combined, inattentive, and hyperactive) to healthy controls using brain perfusion single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging to determine specific brain regions which could serve as potential biomarkers to reliably distinguish ADHD. Methods: In a retrospective analysis, subjects (n = 1,135) were obtained from a large multisite psychiatric database, where resting state (baseline) and on-task SPECT scans were obtained. Only baseline scans were analyzed in the present study. Subjects were separated into two groups - Group 1 (n = 1,006) was composed of patients who only met criteria for ADHD with no comorbid diagnoses, while a control group (n = 129) composed of individuals who did not meet criteria for any psychiatric diagnosis, brain injury, or substance use served as a non-matched control. SPECT regions of interests (ROIs) and visual readings were analyzed using binary logistic regression. Predicted probabilities from this analysis were inputted into a Receiver Operating Characteristic analysis to identify sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy. Results: The baseline ROIs and visual readings show significant separations from healthy controls. Sensitivity of the visual reads was 100% while specificity was \u3e97%. The sensitivity and specificity of the post-hoc ROI analysis were both 100%. Decreased perfusion was primarily seen in the orbitofrontal cortices, anterior cingulate gyri, areas of the prefrontal cortices, basal ganglia, and temporal lobes. In addition, ROI analysis revealed some unexpected areas with predictive value in distinguishing ADHD, such as cerebellar subregions and portions of the temporal lobes. Conclusions: Brain perfusion SPECT distinguishes adult ADHD patients without comorbidities from healthy controls. Areas which were highly significantly different from control and thus may serve as biomarkers in baseline SPECT scans included: medial anterior prefrontal cortex, left anterior temporal lobe, and right insular cortex. Future studies of these potential biomarkers in ADHD patients with comorbidities are warranted

Western Tertiary Mollusca

p. 229-233, [2] leaves of plates : ill. ; 24 cm.Includes bibliographical references.Land Mollusca -- Freshwater Gastropoda

Knowledge practices in design: The role of visual representations as 'epistemic objects'

We use a detailed study of the knowledge work around visual representations to draw attention to the multidimensional nature of `objects'. Objects are variously described in the literatures as relatively stable or in flux; as abstract or concrete; and as used within or across practices. We clarify these dimensions, drawing on and extending the literature on boundary objects, and connecting it with work on epistemic and technical objects. In particular, we highlight the epistemic role of objects, using our observations of knowledge work on an architectural design project to show how, in this setting, visual representations are characterized by a `lack' or incompleteness that precipitates unfolding. The conceptual design of a building involves a wide range of technical, social and aesthetic forms of knowledge that need to be developed and aligned. We explore how visual representations are used, and how these are meaningful to different stakeholders, eliciting their distinct contributions. As the project evolves and the drawings change, new issues and needs for knowledge work arise. These objects have an `unfolding ontology' and are constantly in flux, rather than fully formed. We discuss the implications for wider understandings of objects in organizations and for how knowledge work is achieved in practice

Revised Pediatric Reference Data for the Lateral Distal Femur Measured by Hologic Discovery/Delphi Dual-Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry

BackgroundLateral distal femur (LDF) scans by dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) are often feasible in children for whom other sites are not measurable. Pediatric reference data for LDF are not available for more recent DXA technology.AimsTo assess older pediatric LDF reference data, construct new reference curves for LDF bone mineral density (BMD), and demonstrate the comparability of LDF BMD to other measures of BMD and strength assessed by DXA and by peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT).MethodsLDF, spine and whole body scans of 821 healthy children, 5 to 18 years of age, recruited at a single center were obtained using a Hologic Delphi/Discovery system. Tibia trabecular and total BMD (3% site), cortical geometry (38% site) (cortical thickness, section modulus, strain strength index) were assessed by pQCT. Sex and race-specific reference curves were generated using LMS-ChartMaker and Z-scores calculated and compared by correlation analysis.ResultsZ-scores for LDF BMD based on published findings demonstrated overestimation or underestimation of the prevalence of low BMD-for-age depending on the region of interest considered. Revised LDF reference curves were generated. The new LDF Z-scores were strongly and significantly associated with weight, BMI, spine and whole body BMD Z-scores, and all pQCT Z-scores.ConclusionThese findings demonstrate the comparability of LDF measurements to other clinical and research bone density assessment modes, and enable assessment of BMD in children with disabilities, who are particularly prone to low trauma fractures of long bones, and for whom traditional DXA measurement sites are not feasible

Consumption of high ω-3 fatty acid diet suppressed prostate tumorigenesis in C3(1) Tag mice

Prostate cancer incidence and mortality are high in the Western world and high ω-6/ω-3 PUFA in the Western diet may be a contributing factor. We investigated whether changing from a diet that approximates ω-6 fat content of the Western diet to a high ω-3 fat diet at adulthood might reduce prostate cancer risk. Female SV 129 mice that had consumed a high ω-6 diet containing corn oil for 2 weeks were bred with homozygous C3(1)Tag transgenic male mice. All male offspring were weaned to the corn oil diet (CO) until postpuberty when half of the male offspring were transferred to a high ω-3 diet containing canola oil and fish oil concentrate (FS). High ω-3 diet increased ω-3 and decreased ω-6 fat content of mice tissues. Average weights of prostate and genitourinary bloc were significantly lower in mice consuming high ω-3 diet at adulthood (CO-FS) than mice fed a lifetime high ω-6 diet (CO–CO). There was slower progression of tumorigenesis in dorsalateral prostate of CO-FS than in CO–CO mice. CO-FS mice had slightly lower plasma testosterone level at 24 and 40 weeks, significantly lower estradiol level at 40 weeks and significantly less expressed androgen receptor (AR) in the dorsalateral prostate at 40 weeks than CO–CO mice. Consumption of high ω-3 diet lowered the expression of genes expected to increase proliferation and decrease apoptosis in dorsalateral prostate. Our results suggest that consumption of high ω-3 diet slows down prostate tumorigenesis by lowering estradiol, testosterone and AR levels, promoting apoptosis and suppressing cell proliferation in C3(1)Tag mice