Law Commons^™

In Search Of A Bright Line: Determining When An Employer's Financial Hardship Becomes "Undue" Under The Americans With Disabilities Act, Steven B. Epstein

Vanderbilt Law Review

The employment provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act have been fully effective since July 26, 1994. These provisions require all employers with fifteen or more employees to reasonably accommodate the disabilities of job applicants and employees. Reasonable accommodation can be very expensive: one in every twenty accommodations now being made costs more than $5,000. Although the ADA permits employers to refuse to make accommodations that would cause an "undue hardship," neither the statute nor its implementing regulations provide meaningful guidance regarding how great an accommodation expense must be before the point of "undue hardship" is attained. Consequently, neither employers …

The Pariah Patient: The Lack Of Funding For Mental Health Care, Wayne E. Ramage

Vanderbilt Law Review

In all the furor over the provision of health care in the United States-especially over who will pay for the skyrocketing costs of medical treatment-one class of patient appears to have been overlooked: the mentally ill. This oversight is not new; Anglo-American society historically has viewed the mentally ill as outsiders. In England, for example, inmates at the infamous "Bedlam" hospital for the insane often were displayed for the amusement of the paying public.' Society's disdain of the mentally ill still exists and has led to public neglect of these unfortunates, especially in the provision of mental health care.

Since …