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Legal Responsibilities (legal + responsibility)
Selected AbstractsMachinery-Related Deaths: Relevance of Workplace Investigation and Antemortem Radiological Data in Reconstructing the FatalityJOURNAL OF FORENSIC SCIENCES, Issue 3 2010Giovanni Cecchetto M.D. Abstract:, Machinery-related fatalities are one of the leading causes of traumatic occupational deaths. In our report, we present the case of a 40-year-old male who suffered a severe head trauma while working in a cut-foam industry and died despite an early craniectomy. The radiological reconstruction of the skull based on preoperative computed tomography scans disclosed a large depressed conical fracture of the left parietal bone. The 3D-reconstruction of the work area, combined with a fit-matching analysis between the machinery and the depressed skull fracture allowed us to conclude that the head was crushed between the sliding bar of the cutting device and the metallic protuberance on the opposite side. The case underlines the importance of a detailed workplace investigation and of a thorough evaluation of all circumstantial, clinical, radiological, and autopsy data in the reconstruction of machinery-related fatalities to identify any possible legal responsibilities of the worker and/or the employer. [source] Changing Organizational Forms and the Employment RelationshipJOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 5 2002Jill Rubery This paper draws upon new research in the UK into the relationship between changing organizational forms and the reshaping of work in order to consider the changing nature of the employment relationship. The development of more complex organizational forms , such as cross organization networking, partnerships, alliances, use of external agencies for core as well as peripheral activities, multi-employer sites and the blurring of public/private sector divide , has implications for both the legal and the socially constituted nature of the employment relationship. The notion of a clearly defined employer,employee relationship becomes difficult to uphold under conditions where employees are working in project teams or on-site beside employees from other organizations, where responsibilities for performance and for health and safety are not clearly defined, or involve more than one organization. This blurring of the relationship affects not only legal responsibilities, grievance and disciplinary issues and the extent of transparency and equity in employment conditions, but also the definition, constitution and implementation of the employment contract defined in psychological and social terms. Do employees perceive their responsibilities at work to lie with the direct employer or with the wider enterprise or network organization? And do these perceptions affect, for example, how work is managed and carried out and how far learning and incremental knowledge at work is integrated in the development of the production or service process? So far the investigation of both conflicts and complementarities in the workplace have focused primarily on the dynamic interactions between the single employer and that organization's employees. The development of simultaneously more fragmented and more networked organizational forms raises new issues of how to understand potential conflicts and contradictions around the ,employer' dimension to the employment relationship in addition to more widely recognized conflicts located on the employer,employee axis. [source] Group decisions in oncology: Doctors' perceptions of the legal responsibilities arising from multidisciplinary meetingsJOURNAL OF MEDICAL IMAGING AND RADIATION ONCOLOGY, Issue 3 2008MA Sidhom Summary There is growing consensus that multidisciplinary meetings (MDMs) are the optimal means of arriving at a comprehensive treatment plan for cancer patients. However, if a patient was grieved by a decision made by an MDM and wished to recover damages, the courts would find all involved consultants responsible for decisions related to their area of expertise. The aim of this study was to assess (i) whether doctors participating in oncology MDMs are aware that they are individually accountable for the MDM decisions and (ii) whether MDMs are conducted in a way that reflects this individual responsibility. A 35-question survey was developed and peer reviewed. Doctors attending MDMs in four Australian tertiary-care hospitals were invited to respond. One hundred and thirty-six responses (91% response rate) were received from 18 MDMs across 4 hospitals. Only 48% of doctors believe they are individually liable for decisions made by the MDM. This awareness was greater for an MDM where the patient attends, than in those that were ,discussion only' (58 vs 37%; P = 0.036). Seventy-three per cent stated they would like further education about their legal responsibilities in MDMs. Thirty-three per cent of doctors feel that the MDM discussion environment is suboptimal and radiation oncologists are significantly more likely to hold this view. Even though 85% of doctors have disagreed with the final MDM decision in an important way at some time, 71% did not formally dissent on those occasions. Doctors should be made aware of the legal implications of their participation in MDMs. A greater awareness of these responsibilities and improved team dynamics should optimize patient outcomes while limiting exposure of participants to legal liability. [source] Regulation and voluntarism: A case study of governance in the makingREGULATION & GOVERNANCE, Issue 4 2009Tamar Barkay Abstract In this article I analyze a multi-stakeholder process of environmental regulation. By grounding the article in the literature on regulatory capitalism and governance, I follow the career of a specific legislative process: the enactment of Israel's Deposit Law on Beverage Containers, which aims to delegate the responsibility for recycling to industry. I show that one crucial result of this process was the creation of a non-profit entity licensed to act as a compliance mechanism. This new entity enabled industry to distance itself from the responsibility of recycling, and thereby frustrated the original objective of the legislation, which was to implement the principle of "extended producer responsibility." Furthermore, this entity, owned by commercial companies and yet acting as an environmentally friendly organization, allowed industry to promote an anti-regulatory agenda via a "civic voice." The study moves methodologically from considering governance as an institutional structure to analyzing the process of "governancing," through which authoritative capacities and legal responsibilities are distributed among state and non-state actors. Two key findings are that this process and its outcome (i) are premised on an ideology of civic voluntarism, which ultimately delegates environmental responsibilities to citizens; and (ii) facilitate an anti-regulatory climate that serves commercial interests. [source] ,To prove this is the industry's best hope': big tobacco's support of research on the genetics of nicotine addictionADDICTION, Issue 6 2010Kenneth R. Gundle ABSTRACT Background New molecular techniques focus a genetic lens upon nicotine addiction. Given the medical and economic costs associated with smoking, innovative approaches to smoking cessation and prevention must be pursued; but can sound research be manipulated by the tobacco industry? Methodology The chronological narrative of this paper was created using iterative reviews of primary sources (the Legacy Tobacco Documents), supplemented with secondary literature to provide a broader context. The empirical data inform an ethics and policy analysis of tobacco industry-funded research. Findings The search for a genetic basis for smoking is consistent with industry's decades-long plan to deflect responsibility away from the tobacco companies and onto individuals' genetic constitutions. Internal documents reveal long-standing support for genetic research as a strategy to relieve the tobacco industry of its legal responsibility for tobacco-related disease. Conclusions Industry may turn the findings of genetics to its own ends, changing strategy from creating a ,safe' cigarette to defining a ,safe' smoker. [source] ALGONQUIN NOTIONS OF JURISDICTION: INSERTING INDIGENOUS VOICES INTO LEGAL SPACESGEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 3 2006Bettina Koschade ABSTRACT. Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal notions of geography, nature and space sometimes compete, and these differences can create barriers to joint environmental problem-solving. This paper examines the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation and Allies (AAFNA) and the strategies they used in juridical and legislative settings to make their voices heard. In the Tay River Ontario Environmental Review Tribunal (2000,2002), AAFNA attempted to introduced their knowledge of the environmental deterioration which would be caused by a Permit To Take Water issued to a multinational corporation by the Ontario Ministry of Environment. The paper is divided into two parts: first, it describes the concepts of Algonquin knowledge, jurisdiction and responsibility; second, it explores the strategies used to integrate their perspective into legal proceedings constructed by the Canadian government. This case reveals how some Algonquin people conceive of space and responsibility in deeply ecological, rather than narrowly juridical, terms. It establishes that their broad concepts of knowledge, land and jurisdiction are incompatible with existing Euro-Canadian divisions of legal responsibility and ecological knowledge, but at the same time can serve as the means by which they challenge the current structure of Aboriginal and Canadian relations. [source] How good are we at advising appropriate patients with glaucoma to inform the DVLA?OPHTHALMIC AND PHYSIOLOGICAL OPTICS, Issue 4 2008A closed audit loop Abstract Purpose:, To establish how good we are as clinicians at advising glaucoma patients with bilateral visual field defects of their legal responsibility to inform the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA). By using a sticker placed in the patients' notes to highlight driving status and visual fields, we sought to improve our success in providing and documenting this advice. Methods:, We interviewed and examined the notes of two groups of 100 consecutive glaucoma patients before and after the introduction of a ,driver sticker' placed into patients' notes at the time of visual field testing. We examined the documentation of driving status, and the provision and documentation of advice regarding the DVLA. Results:, In the first audit, we found only 9% of patients had driving status documented. Only 20% of drivers with bilateral field defects were advised to inform the DVLA with 11.4% documentation of this advice. After the introduction of the sticker, we succeeded in improving the documentation of driving status to 99%. We advised and documented the advice to inform the DVLA in 97% of drivers with bilateral field defects. Conclusions:, We found that as a unit we were poor at documenting driving status and advising glaucoma patients with bilateral field defects to inform the DVLA. By the simple measure of introducing a sticker into patients' notes, we were able to highlight this critical group and improve our provision and documentation of appropriate advice regarding informing the DVLA. [source] Risk and Remoteness of Damage in NegligenceTHE MODERN LAW REVIEW, Issue 2 2001Marc Stauch The remoteness enquiry in negligence, which serves to exclude the liability of defendants for harmful consequences that their careless conduct caused, but for which it seems unfair to penalise them, has long been beset by uncertainty. Indeed, a common view is that this area of the law can be explained only by reference to diffuse considerations of ,legal policy'. This paper, however, argues that the remoteness enquiry represents a principled response to a problem that can arise, at a deep level, in ascribing a harmful outcome to the negligent exercise of individual agency. The relevant problem concerns the possible mismatch between the hypothetical ,risk-claim' in virtue of which conduct was faulty and the causal set that subsequently materialised for harm. The ,revised risk theory' that emerges from this analysis accounts for the majority of remoteness determinations. However, a few exceptions are also considered where ,policy,, in a restricted sense, operates to extend or curtail a negligent agent's legal responsibility. [source] | |||||||||||||