654
Opinion of the Court
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 determine whether HIV infection had resulted from this exposure. Id., at 15, n. 3. It is now known that CDC could not ascertain how the seven dental workers contracted the disease because they did not present themselves for HIV testing 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 Study, 126 J. American Dental Assn. 1237, 1239 (1995). It is 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 question of sufficiency in light all of the submissions in the summary judgment proceeding. "When attention has been focused 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-
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