The Causality Of Medical Technology Damage Liability

In this article, I intend to combine the judicial cases to expound the applicationof Adequate Causation Theory in medical technology damage liability, and makesome improvement suggestions about causality prove and appraisal. AdequateCausation Theory is a basic theory used to judge the causation in medical technologydamage liability. There are some other causation theories, such as Laws andRegulations Purpose Theory, Danger Theory, but I believe that Adequate CausationTheory is sufficient to judge the causation in medical technology damage liability.Adequate Causation Theory judge the causation of tort in two steps, called thejudgment of necessary condition relation and the judgment of adequate relation.Condition relation is called factual causation in Anglo-American law system, whichusually be proved by sufferers. But due to the particularity of medical technologydamage, sufferers just be claim to prove a proper causation between the false medicalaction and the facts of damage. In practice, sufferers always use medical appraisal toprove condition relation. Adequate relation is called legal causation inAnglo-American law system. The purpose to judge adequate relation is determiningthe compensation scope of medical institution. Only the legal causation between thefacts of damage and the false medical action is determined, sufferer can obtaincompensation. In medical technology damage, the false medical action directly effecton the patient. In addition to cause physical pain to the patient, it also cause sufferer’sproperty losses (such as medical expenses, lost income), mental damage, and other’spersonal damage. The adequate relation between these damages and the false medicalaction should be determined. There are two methods to prove the causation of medicaltechnology damage liability. One is the rule of thumb, which usually applies to provethe causation of obvious damage cases or the causation between the false medicalaction and indirect damage and mental damage. The second method is medicalappraisal, which usually applies to prove the causation between the false medicalaction and direct personal damage.The whole article includes five parts. The first part is the introduction of a caseof medical technology damage, namely,“Mr. Tian v. the Hospital of Chenxi County for medical damage liability disputes”, which leads to some related problems aboutcausation theories which will be discussed in this article. The second part is anoverview of medical technology damage liability causation, including the definitionof medical technology damage, the concept of medical technology damage liabilitycausation and the morphological classification of causation. The third part introducesthe application of Adequate Causation Theory in medical technology damage liability,including the judgment of necessary condition relation and the judgment of adequaterelation. The fourth part introduces the two probative methods of medical technologydamage liability causation, namely, rule of thumb and medical appraisal. Furthermore,I make some improvement suggestions about causality prove and appraisal system.The fifth part is an analysis of “Mr. Tian v. the Hospital of Chenxi County for medicaldamage liability disputes”.