送交者: cadfan03 于 2006-6-17, 03:20:46:
回答: 听说Yao Xuebiao官司打赢了 由 天蓝蓝 于 2006-6-16, 19:28:56:
http://subscript.bna.com/SAMPLES/mrl.nsf/254a9c7e5ee0351e85256b57006270c6/76c60a5a6eca01368525708200718562?OpenDocument
Medical research law & policy
Volume 4 Number 18
September 21, 2005 Page 703
ISSN 1539-4530
Court Rules No Liability for Professors
Who Negligently Allowed Research Damage
Two professors with a state university are immune from liability for their role in a series of events that allowed antibody cell research conducted by a third party to be ruined (Yao v. Chapman, Wis. Ct. App., No. 2004AP1971, 8/31/05).
The Wisconsin Court of Appeals ruled that Professors Edwin Chapman and Richard Moss were public officers who could not be held liable after cell lines developed as part of research being conducted by Xuebiao Yao in a University of Wisconsin laboratory were damaged through neglect.
The court found the professors were immune if they had only a discretionary duty to secure the cell lines in Yao's absence, but that they would not be immune if their duties under an agreement to maintain the cell lines in a liquid nitrogen storage tank were ministerial in nature.
The appeals court then reviewed the circumstances under which Yao had entrusted the research to the professors and found their duty under their agreement to hold and maintain the cell lines was not ministerial. The court reversed a state trial court decision that had awarded Yao over $415,000 in damages.
The court reviewed established principles of property law, finding the circumstances whereby Yao was denied access to the laboratory and research over an extended period of time created a "gratuitous bailment" under which the professors were required to act non-negligently in protecting the cell lines on Yao's behalf.
The court found the actions by the professors in allowing others access to Yao's laboratory and the nitrogen storage tank, which ultimately lost all its nitrogen and stopped refrigerating the cells, were negligent. Nonetheless, the court found the professors enjoyed public officer immunity because their duty to guard the cells was not "absolute, certain and imperative."
The court said, "Dr. Yao's core argument is not that the safety guidelines or any informal contract between the parties imposed an unambiguous legal duty on the professors. Rather, it is that the professors acted negligently under the duty imposed by the bailment.
"As we have noted, the evidence shows that the conduct of the professors was negligent, but the evidence does not support the trial court's legal conclusion that the professors' duty was ministerial. As such, the professors are immune from liability for their negligence," the court concluded