Life sciences research has vastly improved the human condition by curing diseases and reducing harm from a wide variety of human ailments. But it could also cause grave harm, either by accident or deliberate misuse by insiders or third parties. Tort liability is one tool that policymakers can use to create incentives to reduce the risks from this research. But existing knowledge of the incentives that liability creates and whether those incentives affect behavior in the context of life sciences research is limited.
Laboratories that conduct high-risk research owe multiple, overlapping duties to the general public under both federal and state laws. These duties arise from regulatory compliance obligations and tort liability. Awareness of these duties—and any resulting behavioral modifications or institutional changes in response to such awareness—has practical implications for public safety.
In this report, the authors review existing tort law and discuss specific cases in which tort liability played a role in establishing precedent for researchers and laboratories. The authors explain the benefits and challenges of using tort liability to incentivize researchers and research institutions to establish and enact necessary safety protocols. In particular, the authors focus on how researchers and institutions perceive, understand, and respond to potential liability exposure and how those perceptions might affect research practices.
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