Re: "Scientific Evidence"

[Robert A Scott <bobscottchp@juno.com>]

	The defense attorney has the responsibility of thoroughly educating the
court as well as the responsibility of providing jury instructions so
that technical issues such as 'substantial factor' are clearly
understood.  If the court then chooses to ignore that education or
chooses to reject those jury instructions, the defense has a legitimate
issue then to take the matter up on appeal.

Bob Scott, Esq., CHP
Roger Williams Medical Center
Providence, Rhode Island
bobscottchp@juno.com


On Sun, 30 Jul 2000 13:28:12 -0500 (CDT) "Jerry Cohen"
<jjcohen@prodigy.net> writes:
> "the exposure in reasonable medical probability was a 'substantial 
> factor'
> in contributing to the risk of cancer."
> 
> Al,
>     Many thanks for the insightful information. I ran across the
> "substantial factor" concept  last year in a case where I consulted 
> on
> "probability of causation". My calculations (which were not 
> disputed)
> indicated  that there was less than 0.001 probability  that the 
> cancer was
> caused by the decedents radiation exposure. That case was lost  
> since it was
> determined that this exposure constituted a "substantial factor" in 
> inducing
> the cancer.
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