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BRAGDON v. ABBOTT

Opinion of the Court

Id., at 15, n. 3.

tional transmission of HIV. See U. S. Dept. of Health and
Human Services, Public Health Service, CDC, HIV/AIDS
Surveillance Report, vol. 6, no. 1, p. 15, tbl. 11 (Mid-year ed.
June 1994). These dental workers were exposed to HIV in
the course of their employment, but CDC could not deter-
mine whether HIV infection had resulted from this expo-
sure.
It is now known that CDC could not
ascertain how the seven dental workers contracted the dis-
ease because they did not present themselves for HIV test-
ing at an appropriate time after this occupational exposure.
Gooch et al., Percutaneous Exposures to HIV-Infected Blood
Among Dental Workers Enrolled in the CDC Needlestick
It is
Study, 126 J. American Dental Assn. 1237, 1239 (1995).
not clear on this record, however, whether this information
was available to petitioner in September 1994.
If not, the
seven cases might have provided some, albeit not necessarily
sufﬁcient, support for petitioner’s position. Standing alone,
we doubt it would meet the objective, scientiﬁc basis for
ﬁnding a signiﬁcant risk to the petitioner.

Our evaluation of the evidence is constrained by the fact
that on these and other points we have not had briefs and
arguments directed to the entire record.
In accepting the
case for review, we declined to grant certiorari on question
ﬁve, which asked whether petitioner raised a genuine issue
of fact for trial. Pet. for Cert. i. As a result, the briefs and
arguments presented to us did not concentrate on the ques-
tion of sufﬁciency in light all of the submissions in the sum-
“When attention has been fo-
mary judgment proceeding.
cused on other issues, or when the court from which a case
comes has expressed no views on a controlling question, it
may be appropriate to remand the case rather than deal with
the merits of that question in this Court.” Dandridge v.
Williams, 397 U. S. 471, 476, n. 6 (1970). This consideration
carries particular force where, as here, full brieﬁng directed
at the issue would help place a complex factual record in
proper perspective. Resolution of the issue will be of im-