Epidemiologic Causation in the Courtroom: Square Pegs in round Holes?

Abstract

Over the last several decades, epidemiologic studies have played an ever-increasing role in furthering insight into the causes of and risk factors for numerous diseases. During this time, lawyers, juries, and courts have been faced with difficult questions of causation in the rapidly growing fields of toxic torts and pharmaceutical products liability, two fields heavily influenced by the increasing reliance by scientist upon epidemiologic research. Unable to resort to the traditional criteria for causation in a lawsuit, the legal profession has also placed an ever-increasing reliance upon epidemiologic data in order to answer the difficult questions raised by a claim that a particular product was responsible for the plaintiff's injury. The use of epidemiology in the courtroom has generated a good deal of controversy, largely because of the apparent willingness of courts to “bend the rules” so as to allocate the loss suffered by an innocent consumer to that of the manufacturer or distributor of the product. The courts' willingness to tread in waters considered by scientists to be shark infested has resulted in decisions based upon individual judges' perceptions of policy rather than the strict tenets of the scientific method. Further restrictions on the admissibility of epidemiologic evidence to prove the cause of an individual's injury are necessary.