Statistics and the Law (Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics - Applied Probability and Statistics Section)

Book Overview

Describes a wide variety of applications of statistical concepts in legal settings, as well as cases in which statistical analyses were important elements. Several chapters are devoted to employment discrimination and antitrust violation, two areas of litigation that rely heavily on statistics. Contributors discuss the correct choice and use of statistical techniques in the assessment of damages, the measurement and quantification of skill (in a case deciding whether video poker games require skill), the determination of disputed paternity and elections, and other areas where statistics are used in legal cases. Many of the chapters are written by the statisticians who actually participated in the cases under discussion.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471094358
• ISBN13: 9780471094357
• Release Date: November 1986
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 484 Pages
• Weight: 2.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.3" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

examples where statistical methods were used in legal cases

This is a paperback version printed in 1994 in the Wiley Classic series. The classic series takes popular Wiley publications in probability and statistics and reprints them in more affordable paperback form. In this case DeGroot, Fienberg and Kadane edited a series of papers on statistics as it relates to the law. I have the original hardbound copy that was published in 1986. The classics usually do not incorporate any changes. They are merely more recent copies of the text in paperback form. The book contains 14 articles preceded by a preface from the editors. In 1980 the City of New York and others sued the Bureau of the Census for an assumed undecount of their population due to difficulties in counting the homeless and the illegal aliens. An undercount would cost New York some seats in the house of representatives as well as a possible reduction in funding from federal programs linked to the census count. This was the beginning of a much more public presence of statistics in the courtrooms as expert statistical witnesses such as Joseph Kadane and David Freedman argued out in court the merits and pitfalls of a possible methodology to adjust the census for the undercount. After that the presence of statistical witnesses, who previously appeared infrequently in medical liability cases including class action suits against drugmakers and medical device producers and occasional job discrimination suits, grew to a much more prominent role which included probabilistic estimates related to DNA matching in the O. J. Simpson murder trial. the articles in this book are as follows: 1. An article by Paul Meier, Jerome Sacks and Sandy Zabell on an employment discrimination case in Hazelwood that was decided by the US Supreme Court. Stephen Fienberg was a discussant on this paper. 2. An article by Benjamin King on the use of statistics in antitrust litigation. 3. An article by Michael Finkelstein and Hans Levenbach on the use of regression methodology to estimate damages in price-fixing cases. 4. An article by Delores Conway and Harry Roberts regarding the use of regression in employment discrimination cases. There are also discussants for this article. 5. G. A. Whitmore wrote an article about how a labor dispute at a Reynolds Aluminum plant led to an uncontrolled shutdown of hundreds of aluminum-reduction cells. The company wound up suing the workers union for damages due to lost prodcution from the strike and damage to equipment due to the shutdown. It took 12 years for the Quebec Superior Court to make a decision. The article tells about the statistical methods and expert statistical witnesses that played a role in the case. 6. William Fairley and Jeffrey Glen tell about how Brink's Inc. had employees that collected the money from the New York City parking meters were conviced of stealing some of the coins that they collected for the City. After the conviction New York sued Brinks for negigence in the suprevision of these employees. The