Top-down mandatory vaccination is currently believed by some to be justified in that it allegedly prevents harm due to transmission of infectious disease. It is claimed that people have a right not to be infected with a disease and that this right trumps other persons' rights to self-ownership and other property rights. A consistent theory of property rights should resolve conflicting property rights claims, for that is the very justification for property rights, justice, and legal systems in general. Can top-down mandatory vaccination trump all other property rights? As far as I know, the case has not been made, only the claim asserted, so I won't try to create what might turn out to be a strawman argument. Instead, I'll just consider how tort law concepts might be applied to the topic of disease transmission, as I believe the traditional tort law is closest to a just legal system.
1. The first legal category of infectious disease transmission is the case where one person unknowingly infects another. Such a case should not be considered tortious because of the long-standing legal doctrine that a person is not responsible for acts of nature. Example: a hurricane blows a tree off of your property which goes through your neighbor's window. You are not responsible, and the damage to your neighbor's property is attributed to the hurricane.
2. The second legal category is when one person knowingly attempts to infect and succeeds in infecting another person resulting in objective damages. This case should be considered tortious. In the tree-through-the-neighbor's window scenario, this would be equivalent to attaching the tree to a crane and swinging it over into the neighbor's window.
3. The third legal category is negligence. The formula can be complicated, but basically, the concept of negligence holds that if an injury is cause by the reasonably foreseeable consequences of a person's actions (or inaction), then that person may be guilty of "negligence." From a justice point of view, there is a problem with this category in that "reasonably foreseeable" is not an objectively-definable term. Cultural considerations may come into play when trying to apply the concept to real-life societies. Applying this to the tree-through-the-neighbor's window, it could in some societies be the case that you planted your tree too close to the boundary line between your property and your neighbor's, plus, perhaps, your neighbor's house had been built first before the tree was planted, and therefore you should have taken more care in where you planted the tree, etc. There are many possible considerations that could be taken into account.
Of the three categories, "negligence" would seem to be the best idea for a "top-downer" to analogize to try to justify mandatory vaccination. However, in a just legal system, even admitting the category of negligence as grounds for prosecution in the case of disease transmission, the normal procedures of justice should still be followed. In other words, a specific plaintiff should sue a specific tortfeasor based on specific damages caused by the tortfeasor's "negligence."
