The Rise and Decline of the Reversal of the Burden of Proof in China's Medical Negligence Law: A Political Economy of Lawmaking Perspective
An issue of central importance to the medical negligence law reforms in China over the past decade is the allocation of the burden of proof between the plaintiff patient and the defendant medical care provider in medical negligence actions. From a political economy of lawmaking perspective, this article examines the evolution of the burden of proof rules, with a focus on the reversal rule developed by the judiciary. Drawing extensively on firsthand legislative materials, this article argues that the successful lobbying of the medical profession in the legislative process leading to the enactment of the 2010 Tort Liability Law explains the nonadoption of a full-blown reversal of the burden of proof rule for medical negligence actions in the law.
Incidence of Medical Malpractice Lawsuits and Its Relationship to the Growth of Private Hospitals

 BackgroundDoctor-patient relationship has become an intense concern in public health in recent years. Medical malpractice lawsuits have presented an increasing trend over past decade. This study aims to describe distributions of medical malpractice lawsuits across different provinces and to investigate its relationship to the growth of private hospitals.MethodsData was drawn from China Judgments Online, the China Health Statistic Yearbooks and China Statistical Yearbooks between January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2016. Private hospitals expansion was measured by the number and proportion of private hospitals, the ratio of outpatient visits from private to public hospitals and the ratio of discharges from private to public hospitals. Fixed-effects negative binomial regressions were utilized to estimate the association between the growth of private hospitals and the number of medical malpractice lawsuits.ResultsIn total, we identified a total of 18220 lawsuits relevant to medical malpractices across China between 2010 and 2016. The regression results revealed that more private hospitals, larger proportion of private hospitals and higher ratio of discharges from private to public hospitals were significantly associated with fewer medical malpractice lawsuits. An increase of 100 private hospitals in health care market was associated with a decrease in the number of medical malpractice lawsuits by 21%. The ratio of outpatient visits from private to public hospitals was not significantly associated with the number of malpractice lawsuits. ConclusionsThere was great disparities of incidences of medical malpractice lawsuits across different provinces. Greater expansion of private hospitals was associated with fewer medical malpractice lawsuits at province level. This negative association indicated that more private hospitals in health care market might provide more incentives for hospitals to contain the incidences of medical malpractice cases.
Linguistic experts as semantic tour guides
This article examines the phenomenon of linguists testifying as experts on meaning in legal disputes over the interpretation of statutes, contracts, transcripts of tape-recorded conversations, and other important legal texts before courts in the USA. It concludes that there is an important role for linguists in such cases -- the role of the tour guide. It suggests that judges need not be concerned about linguists usurping the traditional roles of the judge and the jury as ultimate interpreters provided that the linguist's testimony is appropriately circumscribed.