Ease of Proof Responsibility for Causal Relationship of Medical Injury Infringement

Abstract

Medical injury infringement is usually allocated based on the principle of "who claims, who provides evidence". The result of the patient's infringement damage is more easily proven by the medical treatment behavior of the doctor. The focus of the conflict between the doctor and the patient usually focuses on the degree of participation in the causal relationship between the infringement damage result and the medical treatment behavior of the doctor. After analyzing the causal relationship proof content of different types of medical disputes, this article believes that the application of the burden of proof mitigation should be limited to medical technology damage disputes and informed consent damage disputes involving diagnosis and treatment behavior, and should only be used to demonstrate whether there is a causal relationship between medical behavior and patient damage. At the same time, when determining whether there is a causal relationship, judges also need to consider whether the medical institution's treatment has fulfilled its diagnostic and treatment obligations under existing objective technical conditions, whether the doctor has made mistakes in diagnosis and treatment, and ultimately determine whether the causal relationship between the medical behavior and patient’s damage is established.