Sleep medicine reviews
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Sleep medicine reviews · Feb 2001
Medico-legal aspects of sleep disorders: sleepiness and civil liability.
Excessive sleepiness is associated with motor vehicle accidents and is responsible for enormous social and financial loss. The specific legal obligations for an individual with a sleep disorder, their employer and those health care practitioners associated with that individual are reviewed. Although there are related implications within the criminal law and in particular criminal negligence, the arguments developed in this paper will be largely confined to the context of the civil liability. ⋯ Factors which influence this liability include: the extent to which the implications of the condition is known and understood generally; the extent to which the condition is suspected or identified in an individual employee; the extent of a proper screening and treatment program and the way in which risk management programs have been implemented. Although the issue of sleepiness and civil liability is examined from an Australian legal context, the principles have direct relevance to other legal systems. The authors highlight the degree of uncertainty provided by the common law and statutory provisions, and that decisions rest on the balance of public interests, which mean that many of the current dilemmas facing practitioners may only be solved in the courts.