title: Risk creation, loss of chance, and legal liability.
abstract: One can now only speculate as to the future of the law regarding risk creation and loss of chance. Freed from the moorings of the traditional rules in medical malpractice cases, courts are adopting a variety of approaches to this problem in a manner that approaches the idiosyncratic--the law is whatever it happens to be on any given day, in any given jurisdiction. Regrettably, until such time as uniform guiding principles are established, it appears that the laws governing the interaction between risk, causation, and liability will remain in a state of flux.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology, Memorial Hospital of Carbondale, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA. markgarwin@earthlink.net
authors.forename: Mark J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Garwin
mesh_terms: D015984:Causality; D016365:Liability, Legal; D012306:Risk; D035521:Supreme Court Decisions