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In civil tort liability, when the restoration of the status quo is impossible, compensation for damages is the basis. Based on the principle of “no damage, no compensation”, confirming the patients' damages is a major focus in medical liability in tort. Damages need to be claimed from the tortfeasors, namely medical personnel or medical institutions, and their liability for compensation is based on their intentional or negligent behaviors. Therefore, how to determine "medical negligence" in tort liability becomes particularly important.
In terms of the determination of medical negligence in tort liability, academically, there is a discussion on the development of medical customs to rational physicians in common law, and on the development of medical practices to medical level in Japanese law. In Taiwan's judicial practice, there is a tendency to use medical customs as the standard for judging the duty of care, which is the same as the development of comparative law. Hence, their development is worth taking an example by. In Chapter 2, I hope to take the above development as a reference for Taiwan to establish the standard for determining medical negligence in tort. In addition, article 82 of the Medical Care Act was amended in 2018, which is certainly commendable respecting the reasons for the amendment. However, there are still many academic issues worth discussing, which are also discussed in this chapter.
Regarding the burden of proof of medical negligence in tort liability, according to article 277 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the burden of proof shall be borne by a person who asserts the claim, namely the patient. However, on account of “the proof, the losing”, and due to the unequal distribution of medical knowledge and biased evidence in medical incidents, double disadvantages put the patients in a weak position in the litigation. Therefore, in addition to introducing the traditional allocation of the burden of proof, this chapter focuses on how to utilize Article 277 of the Code of Civil Procedure to moderate the patients' disadvantages in proving.
The second and third chapters of this article focus on theoretical exploration. However, regardless of the determination or burden of proof of medical negligence in tort liability, the most important thing is how judicial practice recognizes it. That is, the theory still needs to be combined with the development of practice, so there are empirical analyses in the fourth chapter of this article, observing the tendency of the court's decision of determination and the burden of proof of medical negligence in tort liability from the date of implementation of the amendment to Article 82 of the Medical Care Act to December 31, 2022. Examine the issues discovered in empirical cases and summarize them, to make substantive recommendations.
Keyword: determination of medical negligence in tort, the burden of proof of medical negligence in tort
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