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The Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment in favor of a pharmacy provider on claims of professional negligence arising out of a misfilled prescription. In the case of Roberts v. Quick Rx, Mr. Roberts’ wife went to the pharmacy to pick up his prescriptions. The cashier handed Ms. Roberts two filled bottles through a drive-through window. However, the bottles were for a different patient and for different medications.
The following day, Ms. Bryant administered the medication to her husband, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. A little while later, she heard him call her name. She found her husband on the floor, confused. There was nothing in the area that would have caused him to fall. She called an ambulance and he was taken to the hospital for emergency surgery for a broken hip. The prescription error was later discovered and Plaintiffs sued Quick Rx for professional negligence, simple negligence, and punitive damages. The trial court granted summary judgment on the professional negligence and punitive damages claims.
Regarding the medical malpractice claim, Plaintiffs’ pharmacy expert testified the standard of care required a pharmacist or their delegate to counsel the person picking up the medication about the medication and to match the patient with the prescription. This is part of a Georgia regulation. However, the expert did not rely on any facts to show this was not done or that it was not done by the pharmacist or their delegate. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in granting summary judgment.
The Court held that the cashier’s failure to give the correct prescription to Ms. Bryant was a jury question on simple negligence. But, the same claim would not support a claim for punitive damages, so summary judgment was affirmed.
Quick Rx cross-appealed, claiming there was no evidence of causation to support Plaintiffs’ claims that the fall made Mr. Bryant develop Alzheimer’s or made it worse. In response, Plaintiffs argued they were not making such a claim, but Ms. Bryant actually testified to it and they did not affirmatively state in response to summary judgment that they were not seeking that as an item of damages. The Court affirmed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment on the issue.
Lastly, Quick Rx claimed Plaintiffs’ causation expert did not provide a scientific basis for his opinion that the administration of the misfilled medication caused the fall. The trial court denied the motion and the Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the expert had sufficient facts and a reasonable scientific basis for his opinions.
The Georgia Court of Appeals has held that a partner in a medical practice group, called as a corporate witness under Rule 30(b)(6), is not an “expert witness” such that their opinion testimony is automatically admissible into evidence. In Yugeros v. Robles, the plaintiff alleged that Dr. Yugeros failed to diagnose and treat a complication of plastic surgery. When the patient presented to the hospital, Dr. Yugeros did a workup, but did not order a CT scan.
During the lawsuit, Plaintiffs took the deposition of Dr. Yugeros’ partner, Dr. Alexander, as the corporate representative of the practice group pursuant to Rule 30(b)(6). During her deposition, Dr. Alexander testified the standard of care would be to order a CT scan. Plaintiffs asked for the representative familiar with the records to testify. However, Dr. Alexander had not realized Dr. Yugeros did not order a CT scan.
Prior to trial, Dr. Yugeros moved to exclude Dr. Alexander’s testimony. The trial court granted the motion. After going up to the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals held the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the testimony because Plaintiffs failed to show that Dr. Alexander was qualified as an expert to opine on the standard of care. The reasoning was that, although Dr. Alexander was a corporate representative, to be admissible, her testimony still had to be otherwise admissible. Since standard of care testimony is expert testimony, the Plaintiffs bore the burden of qualifying her and they didn’t do so.
The Georgia Court of Appeals has affirmed the trial court’s denial of a motion to dismiss a complaint against an emergency physician in the case of Graham v. Reynolds. Plaintiffs claimed Dr. Graham, an emergency physician, failed to diagnose an acute coronary syndrome on presentation to an emergency department. Dr. Graham discharged the patient, who then suffered a massive heart attack and died.
Plaintiffs attached to their complaint the affidavit of a cardiologist specializing in electrophysiology. Dr. Graham moved to dismiss on the grounds that the affidavit expert was not qualified and because the affidavit did not opine on gross negligence. The trial court denied the motion.
The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that plaintiff’s affidavit expert was not disqualified solely because he is a cardiologist and not an emergency physician. The Court held that the affiant demonstrated sufficient knowledge in the area of diagnosing a heart attack on EKG to survive a motion to dismiss.
The Court also rejected the contention that the affidavit was deficient because it did not contain facts showing gross negligence. The Court held that Section 9-11-9.1 only requires the affidavit set forth a negligent act or omission, which is a pleading required. Section 51-1-29.5, on the other hand, sets forth an evidentiary requirement, not a pleading requirement.
The take-home message is that it remains difficult to challenge an expert affidavit at the motion to dismiss phase.
The Georgia Court of Appeals reversed the grant of summary judgment to a physician group, holding that the liberal pleading rule does not require a plaintiff to name each individual provider for whom a named physician group may be liable. Plaintiff filed a wrongful death case against two named doctors, among others, including 24 On Physicians, PC (“24 On”).
Plaintiff dismissed and refiled under the renewal statute, naming the same two doctors and named their practice group on a theory of vicarious liability. The renewal complaint included a general allegation that “physicians” and other actual or ostensible agents of the group contributed to the death.
Initially, the group moved to dismiss on the grounds the expert affidavit did not specifically mention the group. Plaintiff filed an amended affidavit in response. Plaintiff then filed another affidavit, which broadened the claim against the group to include unnamed physicians, employees, and agents.
The case is Oller v. Rockdale Hospital, 2017 Ga.App. LEXIS 383 (August 14, 2017).
The Supreme Court of Georgia unanimously reversed the Court of Appeals’ decision in the case of Resurgens, P.C. et al. v. Elliott, decided May 30, 2017, and determined that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it excluded a rebuttal witness, as a discovery sanction, whose name was deliberately withheld during discovery. Plaintiff was a patient of the Defendants, and filed suit in 2011 claiming that the Defendants failed to timely diagnose and treat an abscess in his thoracic spinal cord which resulted in paralysis. Following four years of discovery, the case went to trial and resulted in a defense verdict. The Plaintiff filed a direct appeal which challenged the trial court’s exclusion of a rebuttal witness in the case.
At trial, a Defendant, who was the treating physician, was asked by the Plaintiff’s attorney whether the Defendant was at the bedside of the Plaintiff at a particular time. The Defendant denied being present. The Plaintiff then excused the Defendant, and called a rebuttal witness who was a nurse that would purportedly testify that the Defendant was in fact bedside. Defendant’s counsel objected, based on the fact that the witness had not been previously disclosed in discovery, the pretrial order, or in any communication between counsel. Plaintiff counsel argued that this particular witness fell within its interrogatory response “catch-all,” that she was a “treating medical provider…a person named in the medical records…and an impeachment witness.” Therefore, while she was not specifically named, she was referenced. Furthermore, if the discovery response was not clear enough, the onus was on the defense to request clarity or move the Court to compel a different response. The trial court ruled in favor of the Defendants, stating that the Plaintiff had determined to call the nurse as a witness before trial and intentionally withheld the witness’s name. As such, the Defendants were entitled to the discovery sanction of excluding the witness in order to “allow the trial to proceed without surprise, without ambush.” The Plaintiff appealed to the Georgia Court of Appeals who reversed the trial court.
The Court of Appeals stated that in the event a previously undisclosed witness is called to testify, the only remedy is to move for a postponement for a sufficient length of time to allow the objecting party to prepare, or to move for a mistrial. The Court of Appeals further stated that it is never appropriate for a trial court to exclude such a witness, even in cases where there was clear deception. The exclusion of a witness with probative value was an extreme response, and the discovery sanctions found in O.C.G.A. § 9-11-37(d)(1) are not available. The Defendants applied for certiorari to the Supreme Court of Georgia who granted review.
The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals. The Court held that when a party provides false or deliberately misleading discovery responses, the aggrieved party is entitled to more than mere postponement or mistrial. The aggrieved party is entitled to discovery sanctions found in O.C.G.A. § 9-11-37(d)(1) which includes, among others, exclusion of a witness. The Court explained that a party who receives a substantive answer to a discovery request is entitled to believe that answer, and are not required to file blind motions to compel in hope of discovering the opposing party’s deception. Furthermore, false or intentionally misleading responses are worse than a failure respond, because the aggrieved party may never learn that it failed to receive the truth. Therefore, the aggrieved party should be entitled to discovery sanctions, including exclusion of the undisclosed witness. To allow otherwise, simply because the witness may offer some probative value, would encourage and reward deceptive behavior.
The take-home is that parties who face deceptive tactics by opposing counsel during trial are no longer confronted with the only options being a continuance or a mistrial, which are burdensome and expensive. There are now a severe repercussions for those attorneys who intentionally deceive opposing parties during discovery.

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In the present article the author substantiates the thesis that the contemporary scientific knowledge has exhausted its explanatory potentials and does not contribute to definition of the objective causes of the emerging systemic crisis in Russia and in the world. Hence, such knowledge does not help to conduct the search and to substantiate transition to the new economic growth model, although Russia in its current situation is doomed to stagnation, further slow-down of growth rates, increase in unemployment and poverty. As argued fur-ther on in the article, only by reaching the visionary level of understanding the roots of the emerging systemic crisis and all other problems, it has become possible to form the methodology for cognition of regularities in the human system development, and then, basing on the given methodology, to sub-stantiate the need and possibility to realize the megaproject of ‘Territory of Faster Development: Everything for People’.
Keywords: new methodology for cognition, specific human person, goal, time, single efficiency criterion, systemic nature, cross-disciplinary nature, integrity, systemic crisis, main task of governance, two development paradigms, megaproject.
The scholars in different parts of the world have long contemplated the ways to transform the world order to improve ecological situation, to get rid of poverty, to resolve the food problem, eliminate the very possibility of periodically arising wars, resolve many other problems and make the crises shaking all the fundamentals of human existence to sink in the oblivion once and forever. Many well-known scholars focused their studies on the search for the solutions for these difficult problems.
As many economists believe, everything that happens in the world at present proves amply that the second wave of the crisis has already started. However, the solution of the problems via the monetary means, i.e. emission of money and investment thereof in all kinds of assets (shares, resource assets, real estate, etc.) for the purpose of their resale becomes the prevailing way compared to investments in fixed capital, and thus causes the further growth impairment. Thus, the old models which countered the crisis by money injections into economy do not work any longer; and therefore, this path is hardly the remedy which could defeat the crisis by eliminating the primary cause of its emergence. Moreover, on the one hand, it is recognized that at present there are no serious debates over the measures to eliminate the crisis. However, on the other hand, at the last two World Economic Forums in Davos as well as the G-20 summits in 2013, we observed an increasing number of people stating that the 2008 crisis and its current second wave actually represent the crisis of the contemporary economic model. Thus, until the cause of the crisis of the economic model has been identified, any system of institutions and mechanisms aimed at elimination of pressure in realizing the anti-crisis measures will turn useless at best.
So, we should point that, on the one hand, at present the rhetoric of the subjects discussed by the academic community has changed dramatically. The focus of discourse shifted from specific issues (how to improve, accelerate, modernize, reform, etc.) to the comprehensive agenda. As never before, it has become necessary to develop a worldview approach to the current crisis situation in the world as well as to undertake the search for new models of economic evolution and new concepts of economic growth. However, in order to move to the new model of economic growth, one should have a theoretically verified and practically feasible idea of such a model.
On the other hand, we also have to admit that the global systemic crisis affects all spheres of human community's life and growing in scale, and nobody knows its deeper causes and where the remedy is to be found.
The failure to find the prescription to overcome the crisis makes us turn to history and search for the answers there. The findings, however, are not at all spectacular. For example, Dr. Geffrey Sommers (Professor of Political Economy and Public Policy at the Wisconsin-Milwaukee University (USA) and participant of the first Moscow Economic Forum held in March 2013) when commenting on the strict saving measures to be taken in the context of the looming recession in the Russian economy, warns that with respect to such measures, the point of his gravest concern was expressed best by Mark Twain, ‘History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme’, and the result can be most unfavorable. Sommers points that the last case of strict economizing took place in Germany, Italy and Japan in the period between the two world wars and resulted in fascism. Without stating that the same may happen now, Sommers suggests that the outcome would be most unpleasant, because economizing cannot be imposed on people all the time, as in the end, they will respond and nobody knows in which particular way (Astashenkov 2013).
It is exactly due to the methodological vacuum that many scholars, experts and policy-makers fail to comprehend the root causes of the crisis and to find the way out. Therefore, they can hardly find a proper mechanism to overcome the crisis and to move to a crisis-free evolutionary path of the transition from the asocial model of economic growth to the adoption and realization of the economic-growth concept and strategy that would allow the prior development of the real sector and the development of any human individual and his/her qualities.
The question, which many scholars pose in this connection is whether we should consider the crisis in development of the global civilization, as well as the wars, terrorism, man-made and natural disasters as transient phenomena and casual events, or this is a chain of cause-and-effect relationships between phenomena and events and a result generated by the effects of inherent and objective laws that apply equally to nature and society and underlie the co-evolutionary development of the world system.
Therefore, the major prerequisite for the transition to the crisis-free development is to obtain and master the knowledge on the objective causes of the global systemic crisis, to find the path of the crisis-free development and to understand the implications of each decision made. The time of development by try-and-error method has gone into the past irreversibly.
For many years I have been studying the objective causes of the crisis in the human-system development and try to make some forecasts for the future. Over thirty years ago, while trying to explain the contradictions within the Soviet economy, I found out that the then existing economic theories and general scientific knowledge at large had exhausted their inherent explanatory potential in the search for the ways to overcome negative phenomena. However, it became also clear that in order to solve those problems it was necessary to find what could be described in Marxist terminology as the only possible form of production relations and thereto new relevant production forces. Since then, I have been searching for the theoretical approach at the level of political economy and for the methodological instruments that would help to disclose the objective idea of the human-community development and to reveal the objective causes of crises and find the only possible model of human relations for the present time and future.
At that stage of the afore-mentioned political-economic study, which is also supposed to include the philosophical understanding of the problem, the methodological and theoretical platform was formed by the materialist dialectical method supplemented by the tools of economic cybernetics. Having realized that the major forms of being are space and time, and that the being without time is as great nonsense as the being without space, time was taken as the colligating index (criterion) characterizing the positive or negative movement towards the goal.
The scientific novelty of the introduced criterion consists in the fact that it allowed providing a periodization for the possible forms of development of the production relations in terms of reduction or prolongation of time needed to achieve the developmental goal. That goal was formulated similar to the concepts in the majority of literature sources on political economy – the satisfaction of constantly growing human needs as well as the creation of conditions for comprehensive and harmonious development of an individual.
The major political and economic conclusion drawn at that stage of research which was presented in my thesis, was as follows: (1) another step forward was made in the development of the Marxist methodology. It was a particular human individual (rather than a commodity as drawn by Marx) which I took as a cell of society; (2) socialism had not been achieved in any country of the world yet; (3) socialism would only emerge when property becomes both private and public – that is, when the private production becomes connected with a particular human person and commodities will be produced by demand (order) of a particular individual, and thus, the redundant and unneeded commodities will not be produced, while the consumed resources will be used in an efficient and rational way.
But by the early 1990s, the then existing form of production relations became correlated with the phase of initial capital accumulation, and hence the production forces were becoming even more primitive. The innovations were rejected, while the development took the retrogressive course.
Again, there arose the question of whether that conclusion was incidental. So, it was necessary to achieve a new level of understanding the problem, and the research was reoriented to a new target – to achieve the worldview level. As a result, the new methodology was devised for the cognition of regularities in the human community development.
This methodology is innovative since it helps to reveal the regularities of the human community development in any context – whether in the context of civilization, or in terms of the complex dynamics of long-term historical development, or at the local, regional and global levels, or in terms of socio-economic and political system, or as an integral system. The main novelty is that all these aspects are considered, studied, examined and analyzed in terms of achieving the single and objectively set ultimate goal of development – that is, in the framework of the systemic approach.
Here one should note that as early as in 1784, Immanuel Kant in his Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose considered the world history as a purposeful process. He searched for means to bring history under a law and believed that the law of history is meant to be the law of development. Kant found the solution in connecting history with its initial goal what would give it a regular character. To bring history under a law would mean to make it move towards a certain goal. In other words, he meant to conceive history in terms of teleology and ‘to try to see if we can discover a natural purpose in this idiotic course of things human. In keeping with this purpose, it might be possible to have a history with a definite natural plan for creatures, who have no plan of their own’ (Kant 1963–1966, vol. 6: 8). Thus, according to Kant, the reason and purpose of history are to bring to the full the development of human reasonable natural properties. And this purpose of history is as well the purpose of nature, while the development of reasonable human properties would be expressed in the growth and accumulation of knowledge and use of this knowledge by a human individual for reasonable organization of his/her life. In Kant's view, the ultimate purpose of the world existence is the highest good in the world, and in the notion of the highest good he combines the full realization of the moral law with physical welfare of humans as natural creatures.
Many authors of the reports to the Club of Rome also sought to formulate the goal of the global community development and, proceeding therefrom, to articulate new proposals for reorganization of the international order (RIO) as well as to find a new and perfect social organization of people. For example, in the third report to the Club of Rome its authors, basing on universal human values defined the main goal of the world community (in which equal opportunities would be provided within and between countries) as providing the dignified life and moderate wealth for all citizens of the world (Tinbergen et al. 1976). However, the hopes that these authors will be heard did not come true.
Another report, in which the global problems were addressed through the prism of a system of goals and values and which contributed to a cardinal transition from the quantitative to qualitative analysis, was entitled Goals for Mankind. Here the fore position was taken by the concept of ‘new humanism’ and the idea on the primacy of personal human qualities that would provide for the ‘human revolution’ as well as for the ‘revolution of consciousness’ and societal transformation. Another cornerstone in the basis of this report was the concept of global solidarity, when the norms of human behaviour and norms of state policy would determine the ‘new standard of humanism’. According to the report authors headed by Dr. Ervin Laszlo (the world-known professor of philosophy, systemic sciences and political science, honorary doctor at several universities, program director at the UN Institute for Training and Research, and President of Vienna Academy of Futurology), it would be necessary to formulate the global development goals and to present them to the global community.
Inspired by the assigned task, Dr. Laszlo and his group undertook the national- and transnational-level analysis of the ‘atlas of goals’ set by different regions, countries, churches, multinational corporations, United Nations and other international organizations, and, having interviewed many representatives of all spheres and directions of human activities, set forth the following four global goals: (1) global security (ending the arms race, elimination of wars and conflicts, and renunciation of violence); (2) the global-scale solution of the food problem, elimination of famine, and building the global system that would be instrumental in satisfying food needs of all people on the Earth; (3) global control over the use of energy and raw resources that would help to proceed to the rational and ecologically safe energy consumption, control of technologies, and economically efficient nature management; and, (4) global development oriented to the qualitative growth – that is, to the better quality of life and social justice in distribution of material and spiritual goods (Laszlo et al. 1977).
Proceeding from these objectives, the authors of this report offered several scenarios of the ‘global solidarity revolution’, in which the main role, in different combinations, is to be played by religious communities, intellectual groups, political leaders, government circles, businesspeople, etc. They hoped that scientific community, religious leaders, or business representatives of one country would be able to render influence on their counterparts in other countries and then ‘all together’ they could consider the critical issues and jointly work out the general solutions. Unfortunately, this idea has not been realized so far.
I selected a somewhat different way to define the global developmental goal. The task was to identify the initially and objectively set goal of development. Here the ultimate goal is the one that cannot serve as a means to attain a goal of higher level and at the same time serves the starting point (and a feedback) for a qualitatively new phase in the development of the whole system and of its every subsystem.
The logic is as follows. If any socio-economic and political system can be evaluated from the position of the ultimate goal realization, then the given goal is of the planetary, global nature. From this it follows that when correlating the present practices of economic and political development in any country with the theoretically outlined or, rather, objectively preset ultimate goal, then it would be possible to find the redundant or missing links in the mechanism of such goal realization and to identify the shortest-term and hence the most efficient and sustainable ways to its attainment.
Therefore, the essence and scientific novelty of the new methodological tools is expressed by the fact that it is based on the objectively preset goal identified within the human community development. To make this conclusion, it was necessary, as said above, to define not just the development goal of the human system, but also to define the ultimate goal which should not be a sub-goal of the higher goal within the lifetime of a human individual. That is, to define the objective reason of the human system development means to understand that any human individual lives not to provide the GDP growth or to produce more weapons for his/her own annihilation. Any human individual must and can live for no other goal than the maximal development and realization of his/her own moral and intellectual potential with the concomitantly growing level of consciousness and physical perfection.
In other words, the objectively set goal is that any specific human individual in the course of his/her development must and can reach his/her own perfection or the Supreme Reason. Otherwise, development can proceed along the opposite path and lead to such optional outcomes as the blind alley, retrogressive development in order to start again, or a catastrophic outcome in the form of the apocalypse.
The second element of the new methodological ‘tool-kit’ which includes the integrity, systemic nature and cross-disciplinary approach is based on the premise that the world is integral and nature and society are subject to the same laws, and the integral world as a system can be only cognized through the integration of all disciplines and spiritual knowledge into one systemic, integral cross-disciplinary or, rather, trans-disciplinary knowledge. Therefore, it was necessary to integrate them systemically through the identification of the target function in development of the system and any of its parts in any framework (civilizational, formational, national, confessional, territorial, natural-scientific, socio-economic, socio-engineering, socio-cultural, political, organizational, etc.), and irrespectively of the prevailing development model (neo-liberal, Keynesian, totalitarian one or their combination). Only due to this knowledge, one can understand that the financial, economic, social, organizational, science-tech and, generally, systemic crisis in the world as well as all existing negative phenomena are the links of one and the same chain. Therefore, the solution must also be integral, systemic and unified for the whole world and at the same time must take into account the maximal variety of interests of all people living on the planet.
It is fair to say that the scholars learned long ago how to borrow or combine different disciplines for the study of various processes and phenomena. The spiritual knowledge, however, is a different story. But, we also observe some positive shifts. For example, Fritjof Capra, an American physicist of Austrian origin, in his book The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism as well as in his other bestsellers, states that physics and metaphysics invariably lead to one and the same knowledge. All his works bear the implicit message that ‘inherent connections exist between everything’. Seeking to find a scientific resolution for the mystery of life, Fritjof Capra applies the theory of systems in his books to synthesize the latest achievements and discoveries of physics, mathematics, biology, sociology and other disciplines with spiritual knowledge of the East (Capra 1975).
The novelty of the methodology elaborated for identification and cognition of regularities in the development of the societal system also consists in the selection of the basic criterion which would help to express all the variety of processes, to separate the essence from the phenomenon as well as the objective from the subjective, and to make a generalized assessment characterizing the positive or negative development of the human system with respect to the ultimate goal.
For example, the GDP/GNP indices, human potential development index, happiness index, etc., do not help to reveal the regularity, essence, objectivity and direction of the whole variety of processes because, first, the economic reality tends to change faster than it is studied. Second, as contemporary analysts note, the reliability of the global statistical data raises big doubts. Third, the larger part of statistical information involved in the studies of economic processes represents a certain extrapolation of basic parameters constructed on the platform of certain models. Meanwhile most of those models were developed during the ‘boom’ of mathematic programming, in the late 1950s – early 1970s. Therefore, they cannot describe the condition of the contemporary economy in relevant terms at least because the current economic growth rates extend beyond the minute-errors field of the given models. Even the authors of the reports to the Club of Rome noted that in the course of computer simulation it was found that any model would inevitably reflect views, ideas and preferences of the researchers developing it, and this would become evident already in the selection of uploaded data. Therefore, such a model can hardly serve a means to learn the objective processes and cause-effect relations. And, fourth, to forecast the future and to make prediction is known to be an unrewarding and sometimes a dangerous matter, because the negative scenarios and therein laid ‘forms of thought’ tend to come true. Science has proved many times that thoughts are material and can be operated in order to create, cure, raise crops, correct weather, etc., as well as to kill a person or to force someone to commit unusual actions up to the criminal ones.
In other terms, today the existing model of the human-community development (with all its transformations) conflicts with the scientific and technological achievements. Today the humanity is on the brink of self-annihilation by means of its own intellectual R&D. Meanwhile, the human community still remains a probabilistic society, which is insufficiently predictable and controllable, featured by a high-degree of uncertainty, and is absolutely incompatible with the concept of sustainable development proclaimed by the UN and other organizations at the highest level, with the ‘Millennium Declaration’, as well as with the concept, strategy and principles of building an informational civil society. Therefore, we may state that as never before we need a new approach to examination and identification of the laws of human existence, a new methodology for the cognition of regularities of the human system development and a new measure of all processes.
These examples are presented in order to show the scale of responsibility for consequences of the decisions made in order to create the global community and its institutes, especially, if such decisions neglect the inherent common laws underlying the human system development. Therefore, to create proper conditions for the evolutionary development of the human system in terms of achieving the goal and to bring the whole humanity into common temporal space are the main tasks whose resolution will help to overcome the crisis in the global community development as well as to streamline and unite the whole range of knowledge and theories.
This leads us to the conclusion that from the prospective of the systemic view of such factors as the human community development status and of the selected means and mechanisms to achieve the goal, time can become such a universal index (criterion). Today the human knowledge, with its avalanche-like growth, immediately becomes outdated. The knowledge, based on the empirical analysis and generalization of the past and present, lags behind since when a conclusion is drawn, the picture of the world is completely different and does not represent the actual reality.
So, the third provision of the new methodology of cognition defines time as the only positive index, which can be applied to measure and juxtapose all processes and phenomena. By means of time, we may measure and juxtapose the phenomena that are non-measurable or non-commensurable in terms of other indices, and, what is more, to temporally juxtapose all spheres of human and societal life with the target ideal and to define at what stage of human progress they are with respect to the goal.
The only opportunity and the only precondition to prevent knowledge from becoming outdated is to make it develop proactively, ahead of the actually unfolding socio-economic and political processes. This can be achieved only if knowledge is obtained on the basis of the cybernetic, systemic and cross-disciplinary approaches to the study of the actual reality, through the prism of the theoretical approach ‘from the future to the present and past’, rather than on the base of empirical analysis and/or subjective assessments and thereon based theories built along the pattern ‘from the past to the present and future’. We must know a-priori which socio-economic and political structures and which technological system are relevant to the given goal and what is the mechanism to achieve it. Provided we find the socio-economic/political structure, technological system and mechanism of realization relevant to the goal, the closer we are to the goal, the faster the processes proceed. Hence the time interval between the emergence of a material and/or spiritual need of any individual or a whole society and the satisfaction of the given need becomes the only criterion of efficiency in attainment of the final or ultimate goal.
Thus, the fourth provision of the new methodological tool-kit is that there was found a uniform criterion of the human system development, which is the time between the necessity to achieve the single goal of development, and the reality, in which a society (in whatever aspect) and a particular human individual are located in relation to the achievement of the given goal. If the time between the emergence and satisfaction of any particular individual's need tends to continuously and evolutionary reduce to zero, then it means that the human system develops sustainably and efficiently in terms of achieving the goal. The application of the given criterion gives opportunity to control (manage) the time between the emergence and satisfaction of a particular individual's need. Meanwhile, to manage time means to control development in a way which will provide an evolutionary, irreversible and continuous reduction in time and bringing it to the zero criterion value. Only in such case the human system will start to develop sustainably and efficiently towards the achievement of the goal and in the interests of every particular individual.
It is not possible to dwell on the detailed description of the results obtained from the application of the new methodology; however, they are presented in such books as Forecasting the Future: A New Paradigm and Crisis-Free Development: A Myth or A Reality, as well as in many articles and conference papers published in Russia and abroad. A smaller part of such publications is presented in the bibliography (Fetisov and Bondarenko 2008a, 2008b; Bonda-renko 2008, 2009, 2011a, 2011b, 2012, 2013a, 2013b, 2014).
* to comprehend in time and space the objective picture of the human-system development, depending on the positive (sustainable) or negative (unsustainable) orientation towards achievement of the single goal.
Ø the second paradigm: production and consumption are connected indirectly. This development paradigm originated with the development of primitive technology, labor division, market, class of intermediaries, and the universal equivalent of exchanging the results of the labor – money. As a result of the gradual territorial expansion and foreign-trade development, the direct interconnection between production and consumption would be transformed into the indirect one. Thus, the second paradigm of development was formed. Its development in time and space would be accelerated by the transition to the industrial mode of development. Hence, the mass industrial production of the assembly-flow type develops as well as domestic and foreign trade together with the territorial expansion up to the global scale and mass consumption. This type of production is oriented at satisfying the demands and needs of an abstract end-consumer through a spontaneous, archaic and market-type form of communication (prolonged in time and space) with a specific individual. In such circumstances, the uncertainty of consumption led to the emergence and further global growth of disproportion and even complete de-synchronization between the time of production and the time of the circulation of commodities and money. The time of circulation becomes much larger than the time of production. Despite the multiple growth of material and physical factors of production, there was a tremendous breakaway of dynamics of their circulation from the real and, especially, virtual monetary form. The monetary methods to cope with the financial crisis would only strengthen this breakaway between circulation of real product and money, and would increase the disproportion between the time for production and time for circulation of commodities and money. As a matter of the chain reaction, the financial crisis rapidly grew into the systemic crisis, and today this has become the predominant model of development.
The essence of the second paradigm of development consists in the mass belt-line mode of production oriented at maximal profits rather than at satisfying human needs and comprehensive development and perfection of human individuals. The basic relationship among people is an indirect and desynchronized (in time and space) interconnection between various technologies of production of commodities and intangible values, on the one side, and the consumption by an abstract consumer rather than a particular individual, on the other side. The current systemic crisis signifies the peak, agony and inevitable collapse of this paradigm of development. That is, the model of human relations based on the indirect connection between production and consumption has entirely exhausted itself.
At this long-time and long-space road for movement of ideas, commodities, money, and information, when the time between the emergence and satisfaction of a particular individual's need is unknown, the conditions are objectively formed for different kinds of negative phenomena. Poverty and inequality, recession, skyrocketing prices and inflation, deindustrialization, primitive production and commerce, terrorism and corruption, natural abnormalities and disasters, etc. – all these are the links of one and the same chain and a result of the mediated development model. In this model of human relations, the factor of time plays the most negative role.
The current development model represents the mediated human relations that do not correlate with the started era of cosmic speeds and use of digital, informational, cognitional, nano- and other technologies. Due to the development of these high technologies, the economic and other realities change rapidly and become incompatible with the mode of production and consumption, and, especially, with the mediated-type interconnection among individuals which makes it impossible to coordinate interests.
The new methodological tool-kit allows an objective consideration of the formation pattern of another life-organization model capable of eliminating the primary cause of the systemic crisis and allowing taking the crisis-free development path.
* use of the new methodological resource serves a guarantee of successful contacts among all researchers in the RAS institutes as all of them would be able to speak the same language. This, in turn, will contribute to development of high professional level of research and to obtaining the results for resolution of the most complex problems in formation and practical realization of the Megaproject.
1. Formation of new production relations means to change the content of the economic and social policy of the state and to reorient it to the transition to the reproduction trajectory of development inside a country. This must only be achieved through the orientation of the whole reproduction complex to the ultimate result – that is, attaining of the development goal by means of evolutionary reduction of the time interval between the emergence and satisfaction of every individual's needs. This can be attained if commodities are manufactured only under the demand (order) from a particular individual, without manufacturing any redundant items.
2. Simultaneous formation of new production forces means to realize digital revolution in production and thus to make production personalized, that is, manufacturing of products for the one-person ‘market’. To this end, it is necessary to draw and realize the subprogram for digital production. The minor high-tech forms of production with distributed systems, re-tunable in the real time depending on the demand (order) of a particular individual with respect to the whole range of his/her needs, must be the final link in such production at each local level (at the given individual's place of residence).
3. For all kinds of production and for all consumers at local level, simultaneous formation of the intercommunication infrastructure that would be based on digital ICT, broad-band television and other innovations.
4. At each local level, formation of the mechanism for real-time conciliation of interests of all actors (the state, business, and society) with interests of ultimate consumers (particular individuals). It is not a human individual, who must be digitalized, but rather the direct human communication and the whole interest-conciliation mechanism that would make it possible to provide everyone with equal and free access to all the variety of goods and benefits at each local level.
5. Providing the transfer of the new life-organization model to the entire territory of Russia, its EurAsEC partners (as a prerequisite for achieving a communicative effect) and, may be throughout the planet (probably under the UN auspice).
6. Tactical task: Within the framework of the Russian Academy of Science and under the lead of its Institute of Economics, to build the inter-academy, cross-institutional and cross-disciplinary team of scholars and practical workers; to provide for participation of all science-towns and innovation-towns of Russia and the whole global intellectual community, united by network interaction in Internet, in the development of the herein offered model, with due account of special tax preferential regime and acts of law.
7. Tactical task: To understand and to accept the provision that the subjects of Megaproject implementation will include the state, business, society and each particular human individual, as all of them will be united by the shared interest in realization of the shared development goal.
8. Tactical task: Conceptualization of the need and possibility to develop and realize efficiently at each local level the ‘Comprehensive target program of forming the new life-organization model and new technologies of the 21st century (new production relations and thereto relevant production forces’). The pilot project of this entirely new environmental approach can be realized at the local level of Russia's different regions and then proliferated throughout the country.
Ø The establishment of digital equality among particular individuals. Equal access to the benefits of civilization provided under the made order and without producing anything redundant. Conciliation of the individuals' interests at each local level in the self-governance mode. All these effects will help to eliminate disproportions and de-synchronization in the movement of commodities, money and all processes in time and space, and thus to eliminate the primary root-cause of the systemic crisis, as well as to remove all systemic shortcomings in socio-economic, science-tech, institutional, organizational and other aspects of Russia's development. In turn, this new environment of human habitation and the higher-level consciousness will enable us to build secure and strong digital economy that would not depend on the state of affairs in the outside world. This only possible condition will provide security of a human personality, his/her residential community, his region, country and the entire world.
Ø Consideration of each particular individual's interests at each local level and conciliation of such interests in the real-time regime shall be the only available driving force that would provide motivation ‘here and now’ for the higher labor productivity. This, in turn, would make it possible to resolve the task of reducing dependence of the Russian economy on the raw-resource exports and would acquire the long-expected intellectual dimension, because any human individual would generate new knowledge in the societal and his/her own interests. Therefore, each local community can become the Silicon Valley and at the same time the BioEcopolis, and spiritual Mecca, and the Skolkovo Center for development and commercialization of innovative technologies. (The case in point is available in Rwanda, Africa, where they create their own Silicon Valley that will enable them to step over the centuries-long backwardness straight to the 21st century.) Only in such conditions, by reducing manufacturing of redundant products and by generating the new ideas of each particular individual, it will be possible to create all conditions for accelerated realization of projects for modernization of infrastructural and technological bases of the economy and to resolve, for example, the problems of mono-towns, as well as to provide for the rise of Siberia and the Far East and to resolve other so far unresolved tasks. Investments will return in the real time rather than in half-century periods (e.g., BAM).
Realization of this Megaproject in Russia and the entire global world as well as the transition to control (management) of time should become a breakthrough to the future. The main thing now is not to miss time and to prevent the destructive wave of the new crisis!
Astashenkov A. 2013. The Last Case of Strict Economizing Resulted in Fascism. Russkaya Planeta, July 15. In Russian (Асташенков А. Последний раз жесткая экономия привела к фашизму. Русская Планета, 15 июля).
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Bondarenko V. M. 2014. Crisis-Free Development: A Myth or a Reality. Moscow: LENAND. In Russian (Бондаренко В. М. Бескризисное развитие: Миф или реальность. Москва: ЛЕНАНД).
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THE FMCSR SETS THE STANDARD OF CARE BECAUSE ILLINOIS IS A LOCK-STEP JURISDICTION.
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSR) are federal standards and often judges and opposing counsel often become confused about their relevance. Or worse, they assume that the rules which apply to passenger motor vehicles also apply to commercial motor carrying. Many bad results in trucking cases can be linked to lawyers who don’t understand that commercial motor carrying is a regulated industry.
It is the job of a trucking attorney to educate both the judge and jury. The applicability of the FMCSR should be placed on record in every case, and it should be a frequent refrain that Illinois has adopted the FMCSR in its vehicle code. In teaching these concepts to lawyers I always recommend using the term ‘lock-step’, as judges frequently started their careers as prosecutors and lock-step doctrine is an accepted part of search and seizure jurisprudence.
Judges unfamiliar with trucking law also frequently ‘get it’ when it is explained that Illinois has adopted the FMCSR in order to get federal roadway money.
Below is a typical introduction to the law of commercial motor carrying which explains why federal standards are relevant to Illinois tort law.
Commercial motor carrying is a pervasively regulated industry. 49 USC §31131 et. seq.; See also Midwest Crane & Rigging vs. F.M.C.S.A., 603 F. 3rd 837 (10th Cir., 2010)[Providing historical information on the regulatory regime from 1930’s to date]; see also 49 USC § 31100 et. seq. Congress has declared it the public policy of the United States to promote the safe operation of commercial motor vehicles. 49 USC §31131. Congress has further granted the Secretary of Transportation wide powers to effectuate this policy [49 USC §31133: 49 USC §31136], and created the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration [FMCSA] to assist the Secretary “[I]n furtherance of the highest degree of safety in motor carrier transportation.” 49 USC §113(b). Consistent with these mandates, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations [FMCSR] have been adopted [49 USC §31136: 49 CFR §300-399], which regulations cover a wide ambit, including Lease and Interchange of Vehicles [49 CFR §376], Hours of Service of Drivers [49 CFR §395], General Qualifications [49 CFR §390], Commercial Driver’s License Standards [40 CFR §383] as well as Qualifications of Drivers and Longer Combination Vehicles [49 CFR §391].
Evasion of these safety standards ‘by any means’ carries both civil and criminal penalty [49 USC §14906], and the Secretary has prohibited “any person” from aiding, abetting or encouraging a violation of these regulatory standards. 49 CFR §390.13. With respect to motor carriers, the Secretary has further prohibited the allowing of unqualified persons to operate a CMV; “[A] motor carrier shall not require or permit a person to drive a commercial motor vehicle unless that person is qualified to drive a commercial motor vehicle.” 49 CFR §391.11(a). Congress has not left the industry to guess as who is qualified. Employers are required to keep detailed qualification records on the drivers they employ. See 49 CFR §391.51. And, Congress has mandated that a driver must possess a commercial driver’s license [CDL] in order to operate a CMV. 49 USC §31302. Congress has further directed the Secretary of Transportation to promulgate rules making CDL’s uniform, tamperproof, and contain the ‘class or type’ of CMV the driver is authorized to operate [49 USC §31308(4)] and any special endorsements or medical restrictions are indicated on the driver’s CDL. 49 CFR §383.153(9)(i-vii) In sum, Congress has placed multiple compliance tools in the hands of the commercial transport industry.
II. ILLINOIS IS A LOCK-STEP STATE, AND HAS ADOPTED THE FEDERAL MOTOR CARRIER SAFETY REGULATIONS.
Illinois has adopted verbatim almost all of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations [“FMCSR”]. 625 Ill. Comp. Stat. Ann. §5/18b-105(b); People v. Blackorby, 146 Ill. 2d 307, 319, 586 N.E.2d 1231, 1237 (1992) [“The substantial volume of interstate and intrastate motor carrier traffic upon the highways of Illinois prompted the legislature to adopt the Federal motor carrier safety regulations into the Illinois Vehicle Code in order to make the roadways of Illinois safer.”] In addition to the specific adoption of portions of the FMCSR, Illinois regulates motor carriers via the Illinois Motor Carrier Safety Law, 625 Ill. Comp. Stat. Ann. 5/18b-100 et. seq., and the Illinois Commercial Transportation Law, 625 Ill. Comp. Stat. Ann. 5/18c-1101 et. seq. The purpose of these enactments is to actively supervise commercial motor vehicle transport and protect the motoring public: “It is hereby declared the policy of the State of Illinois to actively supervise and regulate commercial transportation of persons and property within the state.” [625 Ill. Comp. Stat. Ann. 5/18c-1103] The Illinois General Assembly has further mandated compliance with these standards: “Transportation by motor vehicle of persons or property in commerce that is not in compliance with this Chapter or any rules and regulations issued under this Act is prohibited.” 625 Ill. Comp. Stat. Ann. 5/18b-103. In fact, violation of the FMCSR is a felony in the State of Illinois. See People v. Blackorby, supra.
Conforming motor carrier safety laws to federal mandates is not unique to Illinois, but is required for receipt of federal highway funds. See 49 USC §31311(a)[Directing Secretary of Transportation to withhold roadway funds for States who fail to adopt minimum motor carrier safety standards]; See also 49 USC §31314 [Setting the amounts the Secretary is to withhold]. Congress has even vested the Secretary of Transportation with authority to preempt any State law or regulation which is “less stringent than” the motor carrier safety regulations prescribed by the Secretary. 49 USC §31141(c)(3) The Illinois General Assembly has also declared void any state law which contravenes or jeopardizes Illinois’ entitlement to federal highway funding. 625 ILCS §5/18b-106.2(f). The General Assembly had further vested the Illinois Department of Transportation [“IDOT”] with authority to adopt by reference “[A]ll or any portion of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations of the United States Department of Transportation, as they are now or hereafter amended.” 625 Ill. Comp. Stat. Ann. §5/18b-102(a). In sum, the Illinois General Assembly has placed Illinois in lock-step with the FMCSR and the federal regulatory regime which governs commercial motor carrying.
III. VIOLATION OF A SAFETY STATUTE SUPPORTS A CAUSE OF ACTION IN ILLINOIS.
The Illinois Supreme court has long held that the violation of a safety statute may form the basis of a suit, and the violation of a safety statute is evidence of negligence. French v. City of Springfield, 65 Ill. 2d 74, (1976). In French the plaintiff was a passenger in a car which collided with a utility pole. French, 65 Ill. 2d at 76. The plaintiff sued the City of Springfield alleging that the City failed to adhere to its own ordinances regarding the permitting and installation of construction barricades. Id. The Illinois Supreme Court found that Springfield’s ordinances were intended to protect public health and safety, and that violation of these ordinances raised a presumption of negligence. French, 65 Ill. 2d at 81. This is exactly what Plaintiffs are saying in the case at bar. The FMCSR’s are intended to protect public health and safety, which the Illinois Supreme Court recognized in People v. Blackorby, 146 Ill. 2d 307, 319 (1992).
Even before the creation of the FMCSA, the Illinois Supreme Court has allowed suits against motor carriers based upon violation of federal motor carrier safety regulations. Schedler v. Rowley Interstate Transp. Co., 68 Ill. 2d 7 (1977). The modern day Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations certainly qualify as safety regulations, and Plaintiffs have made explicit their reliance on the obligations which the FMCSR’s impose. Respectfully, tort suits predicated upon violation of safety regulations is not new or novel, and Plaintiffs’ claims fall squarely within the ambit of recognized causes of action.