Jun 9, 2020 Edward DoveHealth Law
Research ethics governance will never be the most popular subject in health law, but its importance is hard to overestimate. A significant amount of scientific research involves human participants, whether directly (interviews, observations, or experiments on human subjects) or indirectly (use of human tissue or data). In the absence of such research, our knowledge of human health would be much worse, and so too would our individual lives and collective well-being. Medical progress is contingent on scientific research.
Before almost all forms research involving human participants can take place, though, investigators must submit their project to a committee for review on the basis of ethical soundness and compliance with rules, standards, and principles (found in laws, guidelines, and other regulatory instruments). This committee is known as a Research Ethics Committee (REC) in some countries, like the United Kingdom. In the United States, it is known as an Institutional Review Board (IRB), as the board is connected to a particular institution, be it a university, hospital, or private organization. Continue reading "Have Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) Become ‘Compliance Bureaucracies’?"
Jun 8, 2020 Courtney CahillFamily Law
Paternity: The Elusive Quest for the Father is historian Nara B. Milanich’s fascinating new history on the quest for paternity across time and space. Paternity is at once a history of kinship that crosses borders and a meditation of kinship at borders. It reveals something that literature has long understood: that quests—including the quest for paternity, literary and actual alike—are less about what we find at their mythic end than about what we learn about ourselves along the way. It also shows that the quest for paternity, like all quests, raises more questions than resolves them.
At its most basic, Paternity is a history of paternity testing over time and around much of the globe. The bookends of Milanich’s project are the Charlie Chaplin paternity drama that rocked 1940s San Francisco at one end (Pp. 1-8), and contemporary American family law’s multi-faceted approach to paternity in an age of DNA testing and alternative reproduction at the other (Epilogue). In between, each of Paternity’s eight chapters features paternity disputes from different parts of the world at different points in time. Some of these disputes were motivated by a desire for money, as in the fairly common cases of inheritance lawsuits and child support actions. Others were prompted by a desire for citizenship, as in the case of Chinese immigration petitions in early-twentieth-century America. Still others grew from a will to live, as in the case of Jewish racial paternity trials in Nazi Germany. Continue reading "Kinship at the Border"
Jun 5, 2020 Katie EyerConstitutional Law
For most of us who are parents, being permanently excluded from our children’s lives would be an unimaginable tragedy. Yet for non-biological parents—including many gay and lesbian parents—this outcome has long been a possibility. Because at least one member of a same-sex couple typically lacks a biological relationship to their children, the legal status of such functional, but non-biological, parents has historically often been uncertain. Even today, in some states, such parents can be deemed “legal strangers” to their children—no matter how long the parental relationship, or how much the parent and child desire to preserve it. In these circumstances, a finding of lack of parental status is the equivalent of a termination of parental rights—but without any required showing of parental deficiency, and indeed even in the face of substantial likely harm to the child.
While the stakes of such parentage rights cases are high—adjudicating rights “far more precious than any property right”—they have, unlike LGBT marriage rights, primarily been addressed outside of the constitutional domain. Even as LGBT advocates and scholars have quietly succeeded in transforming the family law landscape in many states with respect to non-biological parents, questions regarding the constitutional rights of such parents have remained mostly absent from constitutional debates about LGBT rights. Indeed, constitutional arguments have most often been raised in litigation by biological parents seeking to oppose the recognition of non-biological parents’ rights. As such, despite the outpouring of constitutional scholarship on issues of marriage equality, constitutional law as a discipline has had relatively little to say on the issue of non-biological parents’ rights.
In The Constitution of Parenthood, Douglas NeJaime takes up the work of making the case that the relationship of non-biological parents to their children ought to be afforded constitutional protection. As NeJaime notes, these constitutional arguments will not matter for all non-biological parents, some of whom already possess parental status under state family law. Thus, some non-biological parents will find relief in state family law doctrines such as equitable parenthood or, in the wake of marriage equality, the marital presumption. Others may be able to obtain a step- or second-parent adoption, affording full secure parental rights. But for those that fall outside of these family law protections—either because their state lacks them or because practical or financial considerations make them inaccessible—a backstop of constitutional protections remains vitally important. Continue reading "Functional Parents, Functional Constitutional Law"
Jun 4, 2020 Mary FanCriminal Law
In happier times, shortly before the vise of COVID-19 descended, I joined a conference room full of veteran defense attorneys from New Jersey and New York. The topic for the training convened by the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys and the Federal Defenders was missing body camera videos. My co-panelist Benjamin West, a brilliant civil legal aid attorney, writer, and public defender, and the defense attorneys in the audience, had powerful accounts of battling for videos of contested police encounters that should have been available from the police but were missing, partial, or not disclosed.
An article I carried on the flight to share with the defenders was Mitch Zamoff’s study of the impact of police body camera evidence in excessive force cases. Unusual bedfellows, including civil rights activists, bereaved parents, and police leaders, drew together to call for police-worn body cameras. One of their hopes—and hypotheses in need of testing—was that video would provide powerful evidence in excessive force cases. Aiming to investigate that hypothesis, Zamoff’s study found another related, important issue. Nearly a third of body camera recordings in the cases he collected failed to capture the entire contested encounter. Summary judgment in favor of defendants was more likely to be granted if a complete recording is available than if there was no video available at all. The effect was the opposite where only a partial recording was available—plaintiffs were more likely to survive summary judgment than if there was no recording at all. Recordings matter—and the effect is modified by whether they are partial or complete. Continue reading "Does Video Evidence Make A Difference in Excessive Force Cases?"
Jun 3, 2020 Howard M. WassermanCourts Law
Samuel L. Bray,
The Mischief Rule, 109
Geo. L.J. ___ (forthcoming 2021), available at
SSRN.
Civil Procedure may mark 1Ls’ first encounter with statutes and judicial interpretation and elaboration of statutory text. Some of the provisions in the canon are barebones to the point of meaningless without judicial elaboration— “short and plain statement of the claim” or a corporation’s “principal place of business” have no obvious meaning. Other statutes and rules are more substantial and allow for deeper textual parsing. Either way, statutory analysis remains an essential component of the study of courts law.
Samuel Bray’s The Mischief Rule reconsiders one rule of statutory interpretation that “instructs an interpreter to consider the problem to which the statute was addressed, and also the way in which the statute is a remedy for that problem.” The mischief rule asks what evil or danger a statute intended to cure and how it remedies that evil or danger. While the rule dates to Elizabethan times, it is misunderstood by defenders and critics. Bray resituates the rule as a tool for all interpretive methodologies. Continue reading "Mischief and Snap Removal"
Jun 2, 2020 Anita Bernstein
Called upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our country, I avail myself of the presence of that portion of my fellow-citizens which is here assembled to express my grateful thanks for the favor with which they have been pleased to look toward me, to declare a sincere consciousness that the task is above my talents, and that I approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire. A rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in commerce with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye — when I contemplate these transcendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness, and the hopes of this beloved country committed to the issue and the auspices of this day, I shrink from the contemplation, and humble myself before the magnitude of the undertaking. Utterly, indeed, should I despair did not the presence of many whom I here see remind me that in the other high authorities provided by our Constitution I shall find resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal on which to rely under all difficulties. To you, then, gentlemen, who are charged with the sovereign functions of legislation, and to those associated with you, I look with encouragement for that guidance and support which may enable us to steer with safety the vessel in which we are all embarked amidst the conflicting elements of a troubled world.
During the contest of opinion through which we have passed the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world’s best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest Government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question. Continue reading "This is a test of A. Bernstein’s Photo"
Jun 2, 2020 Kenneth S. AbrahamCorporate Law
Tom Baker,
Uncertainty > Risk: Lessons for Legal Thought from the Insurance Runoff Market, 61
B.C. L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2020), available at
SSRN.
The received wisdom is that insurance can function well in a world of “risk” – the determinable probability of loss — but that insurance can function only poorly, or not at all, in the face of “uncertainty” – the indeterminate probability of loss. This received wisdom colors a lot of thinking, and judicial decision-making, about any number of policy problems, perhaps most prominently about the proper scope of tort liability. If the threat of liability cannot be reduced to a particular probability, the thinking goes, then it will be difficult or impossible to insure against, and part of the point of tort liability, to encourage spreading the risk of loss, will be undermined.
Tom Baker has pioneered the use of qualitative empirical research to shed light on issues in torts, insurance, and insurance law. In this Article, he employs empirical research to call into question the received wisdom regarding the capacity of insurance to function in the face of uncertainty. In an impressive combination of thick description and theoretical insight, he shows how the phenomenon of the insurance “runoff” has been able to function, with increasing frequency and effectiveness, despite the fact that its fundamental purpose is to insure uncertain probabilities of loss. Continue reading "Taking A Lesson From Uncertainty"
Jun 2, 2020 Kenneth S. AbrahamCorporate Law
Tom Baker,
Uncertainty > Risk: Lessons for Legal Thought from the Insurance Runoff Market, 61
B.C. L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2020), available at
SSRN.
The received wisdom is that insurance can function well in a world of “risk” – the determinable probability of loss — but that insurance can function only poorly, or not at all, in the face of “uncertainty” – the indeterminate probability of loss. This received wisdom colors a lot of thinking, and judicial decision-making, about any number of policy problems, perhaps most prominently about the proper scope of tort liability. If the threat of liability cannot be reduced to a particular probability, the thinking goes, then it will be difficult or impossible to insure against, and part of the point of tort liability, to encourage spreading the risk of loss, will be undermined.
Tom Baker has pioneered the use of qualitative empirical research to shed light on issues in torts, insurance, and insurance law. In this Article, he employs empirical research to call into question the received wisdom regarding the capacity of insurance to function in the face of uncertainty. In an impressive combination of thick description and theoretical insight, he shows how the phenomenon of the insurance “runoff” has been able to function, with increasing frequency and effectiveness, despite the fact that its fundamental purpose is to insure uncertain probabilities of loss. Continue reading "Taking A Lesson From Uncertainty"
Jun 1, 2020 Omri Ben-ShaharContracts
One of the most challenging questions for present day tort law is who should be liable when an Uber car crashes and a passenger or a pedestrian is hurt, the driver or the platform? Similar legal dilemmas arise all over the platform economy. When a defective product sold by a vendor through Amazon’s Marketplace malfunctions or causes personal injuries, can the platform be held liable as a “seller”?
An entirely separate question has for long haunted contract law: should a party be held liable for abandoning negotiations prior to the formation of a contract, if it can be shown that the other party sunk non-salvageable investment in the course of the negotiations? Most courts say no, but in some notable exceptions courts have awarded the disappointed party it full reliance costs. Is this the right result?
These two seemingly unrelated puzzles have recently received a unified and persuasive theoretical treatment in Omer Pelled’s excellent article, The Proportional Internalization Principle in Private Law. Pelled argues that one underlying principle ought to shape the answer to these problems. He regards these as two illustrations of a general problem arising in multi-party interactions: How to apportion liability when the actions of one party, which caused the loss, benefitted others. The principle Pelled uncovers—“proportional internalization”—works by ensuring that each party internalizes an identical proportion of the costs and benefits. Continue reading "Who Should Be Liable When Uber Cars Crash?"
May 29, 2020 Mary CrossleyHealth Law
Nelson Mandela has been quoted as saying “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” Jonathan Metzl’s 2019 book shows how the intersection of race, politics, and health in three states illustrates Mandela’s simile. Health law scholars concerned about health justice are familiar with research findings that the chronic stresses of living in a racist society contribute to poor health outcomes for people of color, particularly black people. But Metzl–a psychiatrist with a PhD in American Culture–reverses the lens and considers how entrenched racism affects white people. The book views white people not as objects of discrimination or even as perpetrators of racist actions, but rather as political actors whose racial anxieties leave them ripe for manipulation by political and corporate interests. It offers three case studies of how conservative GOP policy issues affect white population-level health. Specifically, Metzl explores how policies like loosening gun control laws (Missouri), rejecting the ACA’s Medicaid expansion (Tennessee), and drastically cutting taxes on corporations and the wealthy (Kansas) garnered popular support by implicitly or explicitly promising to protect the status of white people, a status perceived as threatened by progressive policies and an increasingly diverse society. What Metzl finds is that conservative political victories came at the steep cost of poorer health and rising death rates, both for the minority and immigrant communities who were their targets, but also for white supporters. He concludes: “white America’s investment in maintaining an imagined place atop a racial hierarchy–that is, an investment in a sense of whiteness–ironically harms the aggregate well-being of US whites as a demographic group, thereby making whiteness itself a negative health indicator.” (P. 9.) Hence the title, “Dying of Whiteness.”
Missouri is Metzl’s first stop. He explores how the state transformed from having relatively strict firearm registration laws to enacting some of the most expansive gun rights laws anywhere, including its so-called “guns everywhere” law. Some of the book’s most poignant moments come when Metzl talks with men and women who lost family members to suicide by gun. A consistent refrain in Metzl’s interviews was that guns and gun policies were not to blame for the lives lost. But as Metzl dives into and crunches the vital statistics regarding cause of death in Missouri, he finds that, while white Missourians may support permissive gun laws so they can protect themselves from dangerous “others,” the rate of white male gun suicides has skyrocketed. Some number crunching permits Metzl to calculate the cost, both in terms of financial costs and years of life lost, of the high white male suicide rate. (If you would like to hear more about this case study and are a AALS member, check out Sidney Watson’s excellent presentation (at 21:50) from the 2020 Annual Meeting.) Continue reading "White Racial Anxiety + Political Manipulation = Perverse Health Outcomes"
