From Compensation Medicine to Compensation Science

Intersection with Acute Medicine

Abstract

Most trauma patients treated in emergency hospitals are involved in several insurances. From the view point of causation, the Japanese compensation law for damage due to injury considers that probability is sufficient for a civil decision. According to the above concept, the modern trend of civil suit for compensation of damage seems to be based on proportional judgment of legal causation. In suicide cases, the courts have judged that sequela after a traffic accident contributed to suicide to a certain degree. In addition, in some trials of worker's accident insurance, the courts have judged that the rupture of cerebral aneurysm may probably be due to excessive work. As for the issue of medical causation, trauma may cause sudden death due to complication such as pulmonary thromboembolism at a high frequency, or injury to the neck or head may cause complications of traumatic cerebrovascular diseases, such as cervical artery occlusion, cerebral aneurysm or arteriovenous fistula at a low frequency. Complications following variable latent periods may lead to misdiagnosis of spontaneous diseases, especially in cases of aged victims, and may result in neither a determination of cause and effect relationship nor of compensation for damages. The author discusses the cause and effect relationship in the legal and medical field from the view point of Compensation Science. Much attention should be paid to alleged causation by the doctors of acute medicine.