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Full-Text Articles in Law

A Parent’S Right To Obtain Puberty Blockers For Their Child, Megan Medlicott Dec 2023

A Parent’S Right To Obtain Puberty Blockers For Their Child, Megan Medlicott

Connecticut Law Review

Since Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade, many scholars have expressed concern over how the Dobbs decision may impact other privacy interests that previously have been recognized as protected rights under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. The substantive due process right associated with a parent’s right to the care, control, and custody of their child, however, is situated differently in comparison to those rights presumably displaced by the Dobbs opinion. A parent’s right, unlike other rights recognized under the substantive due process doctrine, is objectively deeply rooted in our nation’s history and tradition, and is …


Adjudication Under The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act: Explicitly Plentiful Rights But Inequitably Paltry Remedies, Perry A. Zirkel Dec 2023

Adjudication Under The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act: Explicitly Plentiful Rights But Inequitably Paltry Remedies, Perry A. Zirkel

Connecticut Law Review

This Article proposes an invigoration in the exercise of the broad equitable authority of hearing officers under the Individuals with Disabilities Act. Providing a higher priority on, and an affirmative presumption for, remedying violations of the Act is in the interest of all parties, extending from the individual child to the child’s parents, the school district, the broader stakeholders, and the systemic improvements that is the statutory purpose. The task is not an easy one, especially given the rather tight timeline for completion of hearing officer proceedings, but it is doable with well-tailored creativity and efficiency. As the contents of …


The Public Trust: Administrative Legitimacy And Democratic Lawmaking, Katharine Jackson Dec 2023

The Public Trust: Administrative Legitimacy And Democratic Lawmaking, Katharine Jackson

Connecticut Law Review

This Article argues that recent United States Supreme Court decisions invalidating agency policymaking rely on a normatively unattractive and empirically mistaken notion of democratic popular sovereignty. Namely, they rely upon a transmission belt model that runs like this: democracy is vindicated by first translating and aggregating voter preferences through elections. Then, the popular will is transposed by members of Congress into the statute books. Finally, the popular will (now codified), is applied mechanically by administrative agencies who should merely “fill in the details” using their neutral, technical expertise. So long as statutes lay down sufficiently “intelligible principle[s]” that permit their …


The Devil Made Me Do It: An Argument For Expanding The Anti-Kickback Statute To Cover Private Payers, Chinelo Diké-Minor Dec 2023

The Devil Made Me Do It: An Argument For Expanding The Anti-Kickback Statute To Cover Private Payers, Chinelo Diké-Minor

Connecticut Law Review

Private health insurance is the predominant source of health insurance coverage in the United States. Yet, the primary criminal anti-kickback law in the United States, the Anti-Kickback Statute, applies only to certain government-funded health insurance payers. This Article argues that the Anti-Kickback Statute should be expanded to protect all health insurance payers, including private ones. First, the harms that kickbacks cause— overutilization and fraud, patient harm, and an undermining of a competitive health care market—extend to private payers and their beneficiaries and any harms unique to government payers can be addressed through sentencing enhancements. Second, Congress has previously justified excluding …


Metaresearch, Psychology, And Law: A Case Study On Implicit Bias, Jason M. Chin, Alex O. Holcombe, Kathryn Zeiler, Patrick S. Forscher, Ann Guo Dec 2023

Metaresearch, Psychology, And Law: A Case Study On Implicit Bias, Jason M. Chin, Alex O. Holcombe, Kathryn Zeiler, Patrick S. Forscher, Ann Guo

Connecticut Law Review

When can scientific findings from experimental psychology be confidently applied to legal issues? When applications have clear limits, do legal commentators readily acknowledge them? To address these questions, we survey recent findings from an emerging field of research on research (i.e., metaresearch). We find that many aspects of experimental psychology’s research and reporting practices threaten the validity and generalizability of legally relevant research findings, including those relied on by courts and policy-setting bodies. As a case study, we appraise the empirical claims relied on by commentators claiming that measures designed to estimate implicit bias are valid, that implicit bias causes …


Disrupting Dominance, Cinnamon P. Carlarne, Keith H. Hirokawa Dec 2023

Disrupting Dominance, Cinnamon P. Carlarne, Keith H. Hirokawa

Connecticut Law Review

Climate change poses one of the greatest threats to human health and well-being. It also poses enormous challenges to the rule of law. As climate change progresses and climate impacts intensify, it becomes increasingly urgent to consider whether and how we are drawing upon the law as a tool to advance human adaptation to climate change. Equally, we must consider whether and how the evolving rule of law around climate change responds to existing patterns of social, political, and economic inequality. These are the questions this article engages.

As a starting point, this Article centers human vulnerability as a necessary …


Climate Justice In The Anthropocene And Its Relationship With Science And Technology: The Importance Of Ethics Of Responsibility, Paolo Davide Farah, Alessio Lo Giudice Jun 2023

Climate Justice In The Anthropocene And Its Relationship With Science And Technology: The Importance Of Ethics Of Responsibility, Paolo Davide Farah, Alessio Lo Giudice

Connecticut Law Review

Climate change is a global phenomenon. Therefore, globalization is the necessary hermeneutical horizon to develop an analysis of the metamorphosis climate change could cause at a political, social, and economic level. Within this horizon, this Article shows how the relationship between the concept of the Anthropocene epoch and the request for justice allows for framing a climate-justice and intergenerational equity–focused political interpretation of the effects of climate change. In order to avoid reducing such an interpretation to merely an ideological critique of capitalism, the conception of climate justice needs to be grounded in a rational, ethical model. This Article proposes …


Prevention And Remediation Possibilities In Climate Litigation Against Corporations In Brazil, Danielle Anne Pamplona, Julia Stefanello Pires Jun 2023

Prevention And Remediation Possibilities In Climate Litigation Against Corporations In Brazil, Danielle Anne Pamplona, Julia Stefanello Pires

Connecticut Law Review

Climate change presents a threat not only to human rights but also to human existence. The United Nations Human Rights Council has recognised that climate change will lead to acute human rights violations, such as forced displacement and deprivation of the rights to housing, health, and personal integrity. Despite scientific warnings and academic debates, it remains necessary to seek effective measures to prevent, mitigate, and adapt to the causes and consequences of climate change. This Essay identifies the normative framework applicable to corporate activities and their relation to human rights and pauses at the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business …


Climate Migration And Displacement: A Case Study Of Puerto Rican Women In Connecticut, Camila Bustos, Bruni Pizarro, Tabitha Sookdeo Jun 2023

Climate Migration And Displacement: A Case Study Of Puerto Rican Women In Connecticut, Camila Bustos, Bruni Pizarro, Tabitha Sookdeo

Connecticut Law Review

No abstract provided.


Prioritizing Proximity In Phasing Out Oil And Gas Extraction, Wyatt G. Sassman Jun 2023

Prioritizing Proximity In Phasing Out Oil And Gas Extraction, Wyatt G. Sassman

Connecticut Law Review

To avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change, most of the world’s oil and gas reserves must remain in the ground. In the United States, this would require a dramatic phaseout of oil and gas extraction nationwide over the coming decades. How could we accomplish this? While recent legal scholarship emphasizes the importance of a just transition away from oil and gas extraction, little work has been done to navigate the legal, political, and equity hurdles associated with phasing out oil and gas extraction.

This Article seeks to start this conversation by offering one way to approach phaseouts of …


Connecticut’S Crumbling Foundations: Legal Remedies And Legislative Responses, Jacqueline T. Bashaw Jun 2023

Connecticut’S Crumbling Foundations: Legal Remedies And Legislative Responses, Jacqueline T. Bashaw

Connecticut Law Review

Latent harms pose unique challenges for the legal system. Such issues are often referred to as long-tail issues, wherein the actual harmful chain of events is set in motion years before it is discovered and wreaks havoc. Asbestos is one example. Pyrrhotite is another.

A seemingly innocuous mineral, pyrrhotite has infiltrated Connecticut homes. Somewhere between 3,000 to 35,000 concrete foundations were poured in the state from 1983 to 2016, with varying amounts of pyrrhotite trapped within. These foundations have begun to deteriorate, costing homeowners thousands of dollars as their investments quite literally crumble beneath their feet. While the problem was …


Evaluating Nondebtor Releases: How Purdue Pharma Emphasizes The Need For Congress To Resolve The Decades-Long Debate, Sarah Melanson Jun 2023

Evaluating Nondebtor Releases: How Purdue Pharma Emphasizes The Need For Congress To Resolve The Decades-Long Debate, Sarah Melanson

Connecticut Law Review

In 2019, Purdue Pharma filed a petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code (the “Code”) due to an onslaught of lawsuits arising from its alleged contribution to the opioid crisis. The proposed plan of reorganization became notorious for its release of the Sackler family––nondebtors–– from future civil liability relating to opioid litigation. For over 30 years, Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal have split on whether the Code allows release of nondebtors. A majority of circuits have recognized that the Code’s grant of broad, discretionary equitable powers authorizes nondebtor releases. The recent emergence of several mass-tort bankruptcies containing …


Internet Jurisdiction And The 21st Century: Zippo, Calder, And The Metaverse, Gretchen Yelmini Jun 2023

Internet Jurisdiction And The 21st Century: Zippo, Calder, And The Metaverse, Gretchen Yelmini

Connecticut Law Review

Internet use in the United States continues to increase at a rate that outpaces the legal system. From reliance on outdated precedent, differing long-arm statutes, and emergent technologies, there are unanswered questions of whether existing precedent is sufficient to handle our increasingly borderless society.

Many courts still rely on the Zippo test despite the exponential advancements in how we use the internet in the twenty-five years since the Western District of Pennsylvania developed a framework for this issue. The Supreme Court has continued to avoid directly addressing the issue. In 2014, the Court left decisions on virtual presence to “another …


Ethical Considerations Of Clinical Research In Emergency Care Settings: A Review, Adith Velavan May 2023

Ethical Considerations Of Clinical Research In Emergency Care Settings: A Review, Adith Velavan

Honors Scholar Theses

Emergency and acute care settings are some of the most volatile and high intensity areas of any healthcare operation. Better understanding of systems and treatments in these spaces are critical to improving outcomes for the high risk patients that are treated there. Clinical research serves as a cornerstone of modern medical research, and is critical to the further improvement of clinical care in these settings. This thesis serves to explore the ethicality of such research given the constraints of emergency medicine settings. Not only does this thesis provide a strong foundation regarding the history and current practices of clinical research, …


Why Indiana Harbor Is The Worst Torts Decision In American History May 2023

Why Indiana Harbor Is The Worst Torts Decision In American History

Connecticut Law Review

Judge Richard A. Posner’s opinion for the Seventh Circuit in Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Co. v. American Cyanamid Co., concerning a spill of the hazardous chemical acrylonitrile at a railyard near Chicago, is considered the definitive statement on the abnormally dangerous activity doctrine. That doctrine (also known as the ultrahazardous activity doctrine) holds that one who engages in an abnormally dangerous activity is strictly liable for harm caused to others, regardless of negligence. However, Judge Posner’s opinion suggests that strict liability should rarely displace the negligence standard, even for commercial activities that externalize high degrees of risk. That approach leads …


The Connecticut Clean Slate Law May 2023

The Connecticut Clean Slate Law

Connecticut Law Review

By erasing or sealing criminal records, Clean Slate policies propose a second-chance opportunity of employment, housing, and education to thousands of Americans. In targeting the archaic and inaccessible processes of expunging and sealing records, Clean Slate ambitiously pursues economic and public safety policy goals. In 2021, Connecticut joined the states devoted to ascribing to these goals when it enacted a Clean Slate law that aids thousands of Connecticut residents who face major disadvantages as a result of misdemeanor or low-level felony records stemming from years-old convictions.

Supporters of Connecticut’s Clean Slate law theorize that without the barriers imposed by criminal …


Dystopian Trademark Revelations May 2023

Dystopian Trademark Revelations

Connecticut Law Review

Uncovering dystopian technologies is challenging. Nondisclosure agreements, procurement policies, trade secrets, and strategic obfuscation collude to shield the development and deployment of these technologies from public scrutiny until it is too late to combat them with law or policy. But occasionally, exposing dystopian technologies is simple. Corporations choose technology trademarks inspired by dystopian philosophies and novels or similar elements of real life—all warnings that their potential uses are dystopian as well. That pronouncement is not necessarily trumpeted on social media or corporate websites, however. It is revealed in a more surprising place: trademark registrations at the U.S. Patent and Trademark …


A New And Improved Doctrine Of Double Effect: Not Just For Trolleys May 2023

A New And Improved Doctrine Of Double Effect: Not Just For Trolleys

Connecticut Law Review

In its standard formulation, the doctrine of double effect (DDE) permits an action that causes foreseeable and harmful, even dire, collateral consequences, so long as the actor merely foresees but does not intend them and the harms are proportional to the benefit. Yet DDE’s critics question the moral distinction between intending a bad outcome, on one hand, and merely knowing that the actions will result in the bad outcome but acting in exactly the same way, on the other. After all, except in a few narrow circumstances, criminal law in the United States treats intent and knowledge as equally culpable …


Patent Office Power And Discretionary Denials May 2023

Patent Office Power And Discretionary Denials

Connecticut Law Review

One of the most divisive and debated issues in patent law in recent years has been the Patent Office’s practice of denying petitions for inter partes review (IPR)—the Patent Office proceeding to review and cancel wrongfully issued patents—on discretionary procedural grounds, such as duplicative Patent Office proceedings or the existence of advanced parallel litigation. On the surface, the discretionary denial practice seems like an odd candidate to provoke such fierce opposition. Discretionary denials have affected a small percentage of IPR petitions without making any changes to the features that have made IPRs so effective at invalidating “bad” patents. As a …


Moving To Digitized Health Care: Why Hipaa Coverage Needs To Be Expanded May 2023

Moving To Digitized Health Care: Why Hipaa Coverage Needs To Be Expanded

Connecticut Law Review

The rapid development of personal technology over the past few years has thrust health care online. Most people have used some form of health tracking apps, nutrition apps, or exercise and fitness apps. The expansion of telehealth services and apps during the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the shift toward online health care. Digitized health care, whether accessed through a mobile app, a web site, or a telehealth service, provides a convenient and efficient means for people to access health care services. But this new access comes with a hidden cost: a risk of unauthorized use of private health information. This Comment …


How Patents Became Politics, Steven Wilf Jan 2023

How Patents Became Politics, Steven Wilf

Faculty Articles and Papers

Political mobilization in the digital age often coalesces around opposition to the far-reaching protection of intellectual property. Both copyright and patent have materialized as the centerpiece of major political and legal debates that take a variety of forms, including the European pirate parties, NGOs such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the United States, and the call for Open Source software. The commonplace narrative is that self-interested stakeholders over the past century successfully fashioned an ever-expanding intellectual property system, and that resistance to such legal control of knowledge only emerged in our times. By contrast, this article recovers a little-known …


Property And The Right To Enter, Bethany Berger Jan 2023

Property And The Right To Enter, Bethany Berger

Faculty Articles and Papers

On June 23, 2021, the Supreme Court decided Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, holding that laws that authorize entry to land are takings without regard to duration, impact, or the public interest. The decision runs roughshod over precedent, but it does something more. It undermines the important place of rights to enter in preserving the virtues of property itself. This Article examines rights to enter as a matter of theory, tradition, and constitutional law, arguing that the law has always recognized their essential role. Throughout history, moreover, expansions of legal exclusion have often reflected unjust domination antithetical to property norms. …


Reforming Prior Conviction Impeachment, Julia Simon-Kerr, Anna Roberts Jan 2023

Reforming Prior Conviction Impeachment, Julia Simon-Kerr, Anna Roberts

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.


Taking On The Ethical Obligation Of Technology Competency In The Academy: An Empirical Analysis Of Practice-Based Technology Training Today, Jessica De Perio Wittman Jan 2023

Taking On The Ethical Obligation Of Technology Competency In The Academy: An Empirical Analysis Of Practice-Based Technology Training Today, Jessica De Perio Wittman

Faculty Articles and Papers

Today's lawyers must be technologically competent, per Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.1. Law schools and law firms were keenly aware of this expectation and summarily responded. While law firms offered more professional development opportunities, law schools began offering various courses focusing on technology skills. These courses have increased and evolved over time as the curriculum has changed with the technology. First, we present the evolution of ethical requirements surrounding legal technology competency and offer a description of the lawyering competency models most discussed today. We then review data about technology trends at the most innovative law firms and examine …


Law's Credibility Problem, Julia Simon-Kerr Jan 2023

Law's Credibility Problem, Julia Simon-Kerr

Faculty Articles and Papers

Credibility determinations often seal people's fates. They can determine outcomes at trial; they condition the provision of benefits, like social security; and they play an increasingly dispositive role in immigration proceedings. Yet there is no stable definition of credibility in the law. Courts and agencies diverge at the most basic definitional level in their use of the category.

Consider a real-world example. An immigration judge denies asylum despite the applicant's plausible and unrefuted account of persecution in their country of origin. The applicant appeals, pointing to the fact that Congress enacted a "rebuttable presumption of credibility" for asylum-seekers "on appeal." …


An Empirical Study Of The Nation's First Court Animal Advocate Law, Jessica Rubin, Tara Cooley Jan 2023

An Empirical Study Of The Nation's First Court Animal Advocate Law, Jessica Rubin, Tara Cooley

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.


Mitigating Misinformation On Social Media Platforms: Treating Section 230 Of The Communications Decency Act As A Quid Pro Quo Benefit, Meghan E. Mcdermott Jan 2023

Mitigating Misinformation On Social Media Platforms: Treating Section 230 Of The Communications Decency Act As A Quid Pro Quo Benefit, Meghan E. Mcdermott

Connecticut Law Review

The rise of misinformation on social media has prompted governments worldwide to enact legislation that may affect every person’s right to freedom of opinion and expression. In the United States, combatting misinformation shares surprising bipartisan support in an ever-divided political landscape. While several proposals have emerged that would strip social media companies of the twenty-fiveyear-old law that shields them from lawsuits over content, it is unlikely that they would survive the seemingly insurmountable First Amendment scrutiny. Thus, an alternative to combatting misinformation is needed.

In an attempt to provide an alternative, this Note presents a model for mitigating misinformation. By …


Built For Business: The Commercial Need For Aggregate Litigation, Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld Jan 2023

Built For Business: The Commercial Need For Aggregate Litigation, Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld

Connecticut Law Review

Commercial actors long have argued that class actions are bad for business. But for even longer, business groups have supported other types of aggregate litigation that closely resemble class actions, such as expansive federal bankruptcy. While critics have successfully limited national aggregation via class actions, they have not even attempted to criticize aggregation via bankruptcy.

Why have business groups attacked aggregate litigation in some cases and supported it in others? This Article provides an answer by examining aggregation’s origins and development, and what emerges, it turns out, is very much the opposite of what aggregation’s pro-business critics would have us …


Interagency Litigation Outside Article Iii, Adam Crews Jan 2023

Interagency Litigation Outside Article Iii, Adam Crews

Connecticut Law Review

For over seventy years, the Supreme Court has said that a justiciable controversy can exist when one agency in the federal executive branch sues another. Although this raises intuitive concerns under both Article II (relating to presidential control) and Article III (relating to standing), scholars and judges have paid scant attention to the constitutional foundation for interagency litigation. Of those who have explored the topic, defenders and opponents alike agree on one thing: the foundation—or lack of one—depends on Article III’s case-or-controversy requirement.

That is mistaken. A better approach to understand interagency litigation is to step outside Article III and …


The Language Of Record: Finding And Remedying Prejudicial Violations Of Limited English Proficient Individuals’ Due Process Rights In Immigration Proceedings, Anna C. Everett Jan 2023

The Language Of Record: Finding And Remedying Prejudicial Violations Of Limited English Proficient Individuals’ Due Process Rights In Immigration Proceedings, Anna C. Everett

Connecticut Law Review

In immigration court proceedings, court interpreters interpret only those statements made directly to and by the limited English proficient (“LEP”) party. Thus, LEP individuals can only understand what is being spoken to them, not what is being asserted about them. In asylum interviews, applicants must provide their own interpreter, and failure to do so may result in an applicant-caused delay and, ultimately, a denial of work authorization. In immigration proceedings, the LEP party’s livelihood, family unity, and freedom from persecution and death are at stake. The message that the U.S. legal system makes clear is that it does not value …