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This chapter takes a psychological perspective on tort law decision-making, drawing on psychological theory, empirical research, and legal practices in tort litigation to assess the state of knowledge about decision-making in tort cases. It examines how plaintiffs decide to bring a lawsuit, how defendants respond, and the process of dispute resolution in tort cases. Most tort cases do not go to trial, but trial decisions remain significant as a framework for negotiations. The chapter also draws on psychological theory and research to describe how the judge and the jury as decision-makers resolve legal issues and reach liability verdicts and damage awards in tort cases. Psychological heuristics, biases, and other psychological phenomena affect decision-making in intentional tort, negligence, and strict liability cases, and judgments about liability and damages. The chapter closes with suggestions for further investigations of understudied topics in tort law decision-making.
Although most countries around the world use professional judges, they also rely on lay citizens, untrained in the law, to decide criminal cases. The participation of lay citizens helps to incorporate community perspectives into legal outcomes and to provide greater legitimacy for the legal system and its verdicts. This book offers a comprehensive and comparative picture of how nations use lay people in legal decision-making. It provides a much-needed, in-depth analysis of the different approaches to citizen participation and considers why some countries' use of lay participation is long-standing whereas other countries alter or abandon their efforts. This book examines the many ways in which countries around the world embrace, reject, or reform the way in which they use ordinary citizens in legal decision-making.
Many countries around the globe rely on ordinary citizens, untrained in the law, to decide the guilt or innocence of their fellow citizens. Some countries use all-layperson juries, while others use mixed tribunals or mixed courts in which professional judges and lay citizens work together to decide a case. Still other countries use lay magistrates or lay judges working alone or on panels. This book provides a view of the different forms of lay participation and the ways in which they are evolving. It offers a comprehensive picture of how some countries have made recent and remarkable advances toward lay decision-making, while others have a long-standing form of lay participation that is well accepted in that country. Still other countries have faced challenges with lay participation and have opted for limiting the scope of lay legal decision-making or even abolishing it. The organization of this book illustrates that lay participation in a country is not fixed in stone; lay participation is being advanced, reinforced, or replaced in countries around the world. These shifting responses to lay participation suggest the prime importance of stepping back and taking a global perspective.
This chapter provides a snapshot view of the different ways that 195 countries around the world use lay participation in legal decision-making. We collected information from a variety of sources, including new expert surveys, legal research, and existing empirical evidence, to determine which countries use lay citizens as legal decision-makers in criminal cases and how they use them. Approximately two-thirds of the world’s countries use some form of lay participation, and the most commonly used forms are juries and mixed tribunals. The use and form of lay participation vary by geography and by the legal tradition of the country. The majority of countries in Africa, Australia and Oceania, Europe, and North America use some form of lay participation in their legal systems. Countries with common-law or customary-law legal traditions are most likely to rely on lay citizens as legal decision-makers. The widespread use of lay participants around the globe underscores the importance of studying this phenomenon. This chapter provides a baseline against which future studies in lay participation can be measured.
To determine the impact of total household decolonization with intranasal mupirocin and chlorhexidine gluconate body wash on recurrent methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection among subjects with MRSA skin and soft-tissue infection.
DESIGN
Three-arm nonmasked randomized controlled trial.
SETTING
Five academic medical centers in Southeastern Pennsylvania.
PARTICIPANTS
Adults and children presenting to ambulatory care settings with community-onset MRSA skin and soft-tissue infection (ie, index cases) and their household members.
INTERVENTION
Enrolled households were randomized to 1 of 3 intervention groups: (1) education on routine hygiene measures, (2) education plus decolonization without reminders (intranasal mupirocin ointment twice daily for 7 days and chlorhexidine gluconate on the first and last day), or (3) education plus decolonization with reminders, where subjects received daily telephone call or text message reminders.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Owing to small numbers of recurrent infections, this analysis focused on time to clearance of colonization in the index case.
RESULTS
Of 223 households, 73 were randomized to education-only, 76 to decolonization without reminders, 74 to decolonization with reminders. There was no significant difference in time to clearance of colonization between the education-only and decolonization groups (log-rank P=.768). In secondary analyses, compliance with decolonization was associated with decreased time to clearance (P=.018).
CONCLUSIONS
Total household decolonization did not result in decreased time to clearance of MRSA colonization among adults and children with MRSA skin and soft-tissue infection. However, subjects who were compliant with the protocol had more rapid clearance
To identify risk factors for recurrent methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) colonization.
DESIGN
Prospective cohort study conducted from January 1, 2010, through December 31, 2012.
SETTING
Five adult and pediatric academic medical centers.
PARTICIPANTS
Subjects (ie, index cases) who presented with acute community-onset MRSA skin and soft-tissue infection.
METHODS
Index cases and all household members performed self-sampling for MRSA colonization every 2 weeks for 6 months. Clearance of colonization was defined as 2 consecutive sampling periods with negative surveillance cultures. Recurrent colonization was defined as any positive MRSA surveillance culture after clearance. Index cases with recurrent MRSA colonization were compared with those without recurrence on the basis of antibiotic exposure, household demographic characteristics, and presence of MRSA colonization in household members.
RESULTS
The study cohort comprised 195 index cases; recurrent MRSA colonization occurred in 85 (43.6%). Median time to recurrence was 53 days (interquartile range, 36–84 days). Treatment with clindamycin was associated with lower risk of recurrence (odds ratio, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.29–0.93). Higher percentage of household members younger than 18 was associated with increased risk of recurrence (odds ratio, 1.01; 95% CI, 1.00–1.02). The association between MRSA colonization in household members and recurrent colonization in index cases did not reach statistical significance in primary analyses.
CONCLUSION
A large proportion of patients initially presenting with MRSA skin and soft-tissue infection will have recurrent colonization after clearance. The reduced rate of recurrent colonization associated with clindamycin may indicate a unique role for this antibiotic in the treatment of such infection.
Infect. Control Hosp. Epidemiol. 2015;36(7):786–793
To examine the use of vitamin D supplements during infancy among the participants in an international infant feeding trial.
Design
Longitudinal study.
Setting
Information about vitamin D supplementation was collected through a validated FFQ at the age of 2 weeks and monthly between the ages of 1 month and 6 months.
Subjects
Infants (n 2159) with a biological family member affected by type 1 diabetes and with increased human leucocyte antigen-conferred susceptibility to type 1 diabetes from twelve European countries, the USA, Canada and Australia.
Results
Daily use of vitamin D supplements was common during the first 6 months of life in Northern and Central Europe (>80 % of the infants), with somewhat lower rates observed in Southern Europe (>60 %). In Canada, vitamin D supplementation was more common among exclusively breast-fed than other infants (e.g. 71 % v. 44 % at 6 months of age). Less than 2 % of infants in the USA and Australia received any vitamin D supplementation. Higher gestational age, older maternal age and longer maternal education were study-wide associated with greater use of vitamin D supplements.
Conclusions
Most of the infants received vitamin D supplements during the first 6 months of life in the European countries, whereas in Canada only half and in the USA and Australia very few were given supplementation.