Law Commons^™

Federal Powers In A Pandemic, Julia Whitehead, Braden Leach

Georgia State University Law Review

This Article examines how the young federal government responded to infectious diseases to ascertain the limits of federal powers and analyzes how federal powers were used in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Safeguarding The Pandemic Agreement From Disinformation, Alexandra Finch, Kevin A. Klock, Lawrence O. Gostin, Sam F. Halabi, Sarah A. Wetter

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Complicating the negotiation of a global pandemic treaty has been a sustained disinformation campaign worldwide to undermine the agreement by making and amplifying spurious assertions about what it intends to accomplish and how it will do so. Central to the disinformation campaign are erroneous claims about national sovereignty and forcible takings of pandemic countermeasures. Further, legitimate and unfounded unease concern weakened intellectual property (IP) and speech rights. Having followed the negotiations and provided technical assistance to the World Health Organization's (WHO's) leadership, we set the record straight in several key areas.

The Use Of Virtual Technology In Federal Criminal Detention Proceedings During Covid-19, The Honorable Karen Wells Roby

Georgia Criminal Law Review

The COVID Pandemic presented unparalleled challenges to court operations and the administration of pretrial criminal proceedings. The combination of health concerns and constitutional considerations collided in a way requiring unprecedented creativity in court operations. While scholars have given guidance on how the state courts were functioning during the pandemic, researchers have not conducted an empirical analysis on how federal courts conducted pretrial detention hearings during COVID-19.

This analysis reports the results of both qualitative and empirical findings pretrial detention hearings in federal courts during COVID-19. I examined the state of operations of the district court in several the Fourth, Fifth, …

Shots Fired, Shots Refused: Scientific, Ethical & Legal Challenges Surrounding The U.S. Military's Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate, Shawn Mckelvy, L. William Uhl, Armand Balboni

St. Mary's Law Journal

The COVID-19 pandemic provided uncertain and challenging circumstances under which to lead a nation and the military that protects it. Those in charge and in command faced unique challenges—scientific, ethical, and legal—at our various levels of government to both keep people safe while keeping government and society functioning. While there were many successes to celebrate, there are also many criticisms for how this “whole-of-government approach” may have degraded some of our most cherished liberties along the way. The authors focus on the U.S. military’s vaccine mandate and propose military leaders may have failed to fully consider the evolving science, weigh …

Reply Brief Of Edward A. And Doris Zelinsky In The New York Tax Appeals Tribunal, Edward A. Zelinsky, Doris Zelinsky

Faculty Amicus Briefs

Three reasons of state law independently compel a refund of the New York income tax Professor Edward A. Zelinsky paid on the Cardozo Law School salary Professor Zelinsky earned during the COVID period from March 15, 2020 through December 31, 2020. That salary was not New York source income because Professor Zelinsky earned that COVID period salary at his home in Connecticut “wholly without” New York’s borders. 20 N.Y.C.R.R. § 132.4(b). In addition, New York’s “convenience of the employer” rule does not apply to that COVID period salary because Professor Zelinsky’s remote work at home was for Cardozo’s necessity rather …

Keeping All American Workers Paid And Employed? How Small Businesses With Independent Contractors Feel Slighted By The Paycheck Protection Program And What Can Be Done, Mary Claire Davis

West Virginia Law Review

Imagine it is late March 2020, and you own and manage a small transportation company that employs independent contractor drivers. In addition to managing the upheaval that has occurred to all small businesses across the country with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, you worry that your workers will not be able to keep food on the table. You hear about a new government program—the Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) created by legislation known as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (“CARES Act”)—that is meant to “keep[] American workers paid and employed.” You understand that the United States Small …

Children Seen But Not Heard, Stacey B. Steinberg

UF Law Faculty Publications

Children are expected to abide by the will of their parents. In the last 200 years, American jurisprudence has given parents the ability to control their children’s upbringing with few exceptions. The principle governing this norm is that parents know best and will use their better knowledge to protect their children’s welfare.

The COVID-19 pandemic, public school rules, and children’s privacy laws offer modern examples of regulations in which the interests of parents and children may not align. Minors may want access to vaccines, despite a parent’s refusal to sign a consent form. Minors may want to talk to their …

When Governors Prioritize Individual Freedom Over Public Health: Tort Liability For Government Failures, Barbara Pfeffer Billauer Jd, Ma, Phd

Journal of Law and Health

Over half the states have enacted laws diminishing or curtailing the rights of the executive branch (legislatures or governors) to enact laws to preserve, protect, or safeguard public health in the wake of the COVID-19 emergency. Governor DeSantis, of Florida, for example, effectively banned mask mandates in schools during the high point of the epidemic – based on flawed science and erroneous data – and now wants to make that response permanent. The rules effectuating this Executive Order were enacted under an emergency order finding a threat to public health. Nevertheless, the response promulgated by the Florida Department of Health …

How Bodily Autonomy Can Fail Against Vaccination Mandates; The Few Vs. The Many, Jason Yadhram

Journal of Law and Health

Humans have been a communal species since inception and continue to be so to this day. Because of this, if even a small scale of a measured population becomes severely ill, the entire remaining population and surrounding area is thrown into absolute chaos. In fact, we have seen these circumstances throughout history and in the recent COVID-19 pandemic yet, some of us have forgotten that the only way this chaos can be curbed, is by enacting a mandatory vaccination policy. Since COVID-19 however, vaccination mandates have become an uneasy topic of conversation in the United States for essentially one main …

A Look Back In Time: Analyzing The Success And Value Of The 2014 Amendments To Rule 2a-7 And Reporting On Form N-Cr In Light Of The March 2020 Market Events, Jocelyn Near

Catholic University Law Review

Money market funds have frequently been a target of regulation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). Perhaps the most expansive regulation came as a response to the 2008 financial crisis, in which the Reserve Primary Fund “broke the buck.” The SEC’s misguided 2014 reforms exacerbated the inherent risks of money market funds, including the risk of runs and first mover advantage, particularly with the implementation of Form N-CR. Form N-CR requires a money market fund to publicly report when various events occur, including when a retail or government money market fund’s current net asset value per share deviates downward …

Covid-19 Risk Factors And Boilerplate Disclosure, Stephen J. Choi, Mitu Gulati, Xuan Liu, Adam C. Pritchard

Law & Economics Working Papers

The SEC mandates that public companies assess new information that changes the risks that they face and disclose these if there has been a “material” change. Does that theory work in practice? Or are companies copying and repeating the same generic disclosures? Using the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, we explore these questions. Overall, we find considerable rote copying of boilerplate disclosures. Further, the factors that correlate with deviations from the boilerplate seem related more to the resources that companies have (large companies change updated disclosures more) and litigation risks (companies vulnerable to shareholder litigation update more) rather than general …

Implementation Of Closing And Disbursement Of The International Travel Insurance Policy In Relation With Covid-19 Disease, Kurnia Togar Pandapotan Tanjung, Athaya Yumna, Janthi Dharma Shanty

Journal of Indonesian Tourism and Policy Studies

In life, one is always faced with uncertain risks. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, a person traveling abroad for business or tourism purposes has the risk of being infected with COVID-19. One of the efforts that one can make to minimize the risk of being infected with the COVID-19 is to transfer the risk to the Insurer by registering with an Insurance Company to get a Travel Insurance. The COVID-19 International Travel Insurance provides a guarantee of protection to someone traveling internationally from the risk of being infected with the COVID-19 so that the trip becomes comfortable, safe, …

Free For All: Proposing Legislation To Eliminate Food Insecurity In Arkansas Public Schools, A. Mills Bryant

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Schools serve millions of students daily as one of the largest food distribution sites in the United States. However, more than 13.1 million children in the United States, and almost 150,000 in Arkansas, are food insecure. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, most Arkansas schools offered free and reduced lunch to students at or below the poverty line through participation in the National School Lunch Program (“NSLP”). During COVID-19, Congress passed The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (“FFCRA”) and The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (“CARES”) (hereinafter “The Acts”). This legislation effectively eliminated food insecurity in participating American public schools, …

Biophilic Design And Biophilic Cities: An Explainer, Kincaid Brown

Law Librarian Scholarship

The COVID-19 pandemic brought into focus that outdoor activities in natural settings have a positive impact on mental health, and individuals participating in outdoor activity report higher rates of emotional well-being than individuals who do not participate in such activity. Biophilic design is an architectural practice that aims to connect people to nature through design concepts with one of the benefits being psychological. Other benefits of biophilic design include improvements to environmental quality, physical health, support of animal species and habitats, and more resilient and energy-efficient cities.

Pandemics Of Limitation Of Rights, Rinat Kitai-Sangero

Touro Law Review

This Article discusses the limitation of rights due to pandemics. It analyzes from a constitutional standpoint the holding of the German Federal Constitutional Court (Das BUNDESVERFASSUNGSGERICHT) from April 2022 as a symptom of moral panic disguised through an analytical process. Though it focuses on this case, it sheds light on the moral panic that characterized many countries’ approaches during the COVID-19 pandemic. On April 27, 2022, the German Federal Constitutional Court held that a provision to provide proof of vaccination against COVID-19, recovery from COVID-19, or a medical exemption to COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of employment in the health …

“It’S The End Of The World As We Know It” –Redrafting Amendment To Federal Rule Of Criminal Procedure 26 To Allow Remote Testimony, Alisson Sandoval

Touro Law Review

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when society fought an aggressive and deadly virus, our connection to the outside world became predominantly virtual. Videoconference technology became essential in state and federal civil judicial proceedings. In light of the unprecedented challenges presented by the pandemic and its long-lasting impact on the criminal justice system, this Article argues for amending Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 26 to permit remote witness testimony when a witness is unavailable.

‘News Reporting On Possible Origins Of The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Critical Review And Case Study’, Raya M. Fanuzzi

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

This project is a critical analysis of news reports that discuss the potential origins of the 'COVID-19' pandemic for the purposes of identifying themes and trends in the actual reporting. Around 500 news reports published in the U.S. were analyzed and over 100 of them were selected for the critical review. Articles were found using 'Access News Archive' and Google search engine. Original methods for analyzing and reviewing articles were developed and used. A case study is included aside from the review which focuses specifically on trends in fact-check reporting during the pandemic.

American Star Chamber: Online Misinformation, Government Intervention, And The Intellectual Matrix Of The First Amendment, Emily E. Burton

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Just as monarchs and clerical authorities struggled to respond to seditious and heretical writings enabled by the invention of the printing press, twenty-first century governments are experiencing a similar information revolution as a result of the digital age and a rising tide of what the United States has labeled online misinformation. Like the printing press, the Internet has enabled the spread of information at an exponentially lower cost and an exponentially higher speed as it extends the ability to publish thoughts and opinions to an increasingly diverse array of individuals. Although this was largely celebrated during the first two decades …

Is Jacobson V. Massachusetts Viable After A Century Of Dormancy? A Review In The Face Of Covid-19, Sawan Talwar

Touro Law Review

The COVID-19 pandemic has stretched us into the vast unknowns, emotionally, logically, politically, and legally. Relying on their police power, governments inched into the darkness of the powers’ fullest extent, leaving many to wonder whether the exercise of this power was constitutional. This Article examines the extent of the police power that both the federal and state governments have, and how Jacobson v. Massachusetts1 was the “silver bullet” for governments across the United States. Further, this Article provides an overview of police power, and the status of COVID-19 mandates. This Article additionally examines quarantine case law and provides an analysis …