Disability Law Commons^™

Who Gets The Ventilator? Disability Discrimination In Covid-19 Medical-Rationing Protocols, Samuel Bagenstos

Articles

The coronavirus pandemic has forced us to reckon with the possibility of having to ration life-saving medical treatments. In response, many health systems have employed protocols that explicitly de-prioritize people for these treatments based on pre-existing disabilities. This Essay argues that such protocols violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and the Affordable Care Act. Such explicit discrimination on its face violates these statutes. Nor can medical providers simply define disabled patients as being “unqualified” because of disabilities that do not affect the ability to ameliorate the condition for which treatment is sought. A proper interpretation of the …

Law In The Time Of Covid-19, Katharina Pistor

Faculty Books

The COVID-19 crisis has ended and upended lives around the globe. In addition to killing over 160,000 people, more than 35,000 in the United States alone, its secondary effects have been as devastating. These secondary effects pose fundamental challenges to the rules that govern our social, political, and economic lives. These rules are the domain of lawyers. Law in the Time of COVID-19 is the product of a joint effort by members of the faculty of Columbia Law School and several law professors from other schools.

This volume offers guidance for thinking about some the most pressing legal issues the …

May Hospitals Withhold Ventilators From Covid-19 Patients With Pre-Existing Disabilities? Notes On The Law And Ethics Of Disability-Based Medical Rationing, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Law & Economics Working Papers

Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, the threat of medical rationing is now clear and present. Hospitals faced with a crush of patients must now seriously confront questions of how to allocate scarce resources—notably life-saving ventilators—at a time of severe shortage. In their protocols for addressing this situation, hospitals and state agencies often employ explicitly disability-based distinctions. For example, Alabama’s crisis standards of care provide that “people with severe or profound intellectual disability ‘are unlikely candidates for ventilator support.’” This essay, written as this crisis unfolds, argues that disability-based distinctions like these violate the law. The Americans with Disabilities Act, the …

The Case For Face Shields: Improving The Covid-19 Public Health Policy Toolkit, Timothy L. Wiemken, Ana Santos Rutschman, Robert Gatter

All Faculty Scholarship

As the United States battles the later stages of the first wave of COVID-19 and faces the prospect of future waves, it is time to consider the practical utility of face shields as an alternative or complement to face masks in the policy guidance. Without face shields specifically noted in national guidance, many areas may be reluctant to allow their use as an alternative to cloth face masks, even with sufficient modification.

In this piece, we discuss the benefits of face shields as a substitute to face masks in the context of public health policy. We further discuss the implications …

Protecting The Rights Of People With Disabilities, Elizabeth Pendo

All Faculty Scholarship

One in four Americans — a diverse group of 61 million people — experience some form of disability (Okoro, 2018). On average, people with disabilities experience significant disparities in education, employment, poverty, access to health care, food security, housing, transportation, and exposure to crime and domestic violence (Pendo & Iezzoni, 2019). Intersections with demographic characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, and LGBT status, may intensify certain inequities. For example, women with disability experience greater disparities in income, education, and employment (Nosek, 2016), and members of under-served racial and ethnic groups with disabilities experience greater disparities in health status and access …

Covid-19 And Public Accommodations Under The Americans With Disabilities Act: Getting Americans Safely Back To Restaurants, Theaters, Gyms, And “Normal”, Frank Griffin M.D., J.D.

SLU Law Journal Online

THIS IS A PRELIMINARY EXPEDITED VERSION OF THE OFFICIAL ARTICLE TO BE ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY LAW JOURNAL VOLUME 65 NUMBER 2

COVID-19 permanently changed the way places of public accommodation like restaurants, theaters, medical facilities, arenas, gyms, and many other proprietors of mainstream American activities must operate in order to accommodate people with newly-defined, COVID-19-related disabilities under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The required modifications will affect all patrons and employees of these establishments. Under the ADA, places of public accommodation are barred from discriminating against people with disabilities in the full and …

The New "Essential": Rethinking Social Goods In The Age Of Covid-19, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

The Covid-19 crisis has laid bare the fragility of social insurance systems in the United States and the lack of income security and basic benefits for many workers and residents. The United States has long had weaker protections for workers compared to other liberal democracies racial and economic disparities among those most affected by these dislocations (analyses are hampered by a paucity of demographic data). Those who were socially and economically vulnerable before the pandemic (for example due to homelessness, immigration status, or incarceration) are likely to suffer the most harm. Changes in workplace conditions as a result of the …