Disability Law Commons^™

Affirmatively Furthering Health Equity, Mary Crossley

Articles

Pervasive health disparities in the United States undermine both public health and social cohesion. Because of the enormity of the health care sector, government action, standing alone, is limited in its power to remedy health disparities. This Article proposes a novel approach to distributing responsibility for promoting health equity broadly among public and private actors in the health care sector. Specifically, it recommends that the Department of Health and Human Services issue guidance articulating an obligation on the part of all recipients of federal health care funding to act affirmatively to advance health equity. The Fair Housing Act’s requirement that …

From Healthcare To Hiring: Impacts Of Social And Public Policy On Disabled Veterans In The United States, Benjamin Michael Stoflet

Journal of Law and Health

Part I of this paper considers the historical foundations, motivations, and evolution of veterans’ disability and employment legislation in the United States. Utilizing disability and employment as its framework, Part II then defines, describes, and critiques contemporary policies for disabled veterans in the areas of federal employment protections and uses of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) within the VA’s disability decision review process. Part III discusses the roles played by disabled veterans and the federal government in policy reform, finding that both sides act as catalysts and barriers to legislative change. This paper concludes in Part IV, recommending legislation that integrates …

Committed To Commitment: The Problem With Washington State’S Involuntary Treatment Act, Hannah Garland

Washington Law Review

Washington State utilizes the Involuntary Treatment Act (ITA) to civilly commit individuals experiencing behavioral health crises. Although civil commitment involves stripping away fundamental rights, it receives less attention than criminal incarceration. The ITA is meant to protect not just the general community, but also the rights of people with behavioral health disorders who utilize the ITA system. Yet, its implementation tells a different story. Individuals in King County are detained and committed repeatedly, without receiving consistent care. Furthermore, the ITA disproportionately impacts unhoused individuals and Black individuals. As the ITA continues to grow both in utilization and expense, other community-based …

Discrimination And Disparity: Violating Olmstead V. L.C. Discriminates Against The Psychiatrically Vulnerable And Fosters Racial/Ethnic And Socioeconomic Mental Health Disparities, Mckenna S. Cloud

Mississippi College Law Review

Mississippi is one of several states still in violation of federal laws by unnecessarily institutionalizing individuals with serious mental illness and intellectual and developmental disabilities (“psychiatric vulnerabilities”) and by failing to offer sufficient community-based mental health services. This Comment uses Mississippi’s broken mental healthcare system as a case study to reveal how violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and Olmstead v. L.C. ex rel Zimring, 527 U.S. 581, 597 (1999), not only discriminates against the psychiatrically vulnerable but also fosters racial/ethnic and socioeconomic mental health disparities. Complying with these federal mandates will provide individuals with psychiatric vulnerabilities with …

Abortion Rights And Disability Equality: A New Constitutional Battleground, Allison M. Whelan, Michele Goodwin

Washington and Lee Law Review

Abortion rights and access are under siege in the United States. Even while current state-level attacks take on a newly aggressive scale and scope—emboldened by the United States Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey—the legal landscape emerging in the wake of Dobbs is decades in the making. In this Article, we analyze the pre- and post-Roe landscapes, explaining that after the Supreme Court recognized a right to abortion in Roe in 1973, anti-abortionists sought to dismantle that right, first …

Reclaiming The Right To Consent: Judicial Bypass Mechanism As A Way For Persons With Disabilities To Lawfully Consent To Sexual Activity In Ohio, Melissa S. Obodzinski

Cleveland State Law Review

In Ohio, it is a criminal offense to engage in sexual conduct with another when his or her ability to consent is “substantially impaired” because of a mental or physical condition. There is no mechanism for persons with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities to receive judicial notice of whether their ability to consent is “substantially impaired” prior to criminal adjudication, nor is there a way for them to affirmatively prove that they have the capacity to consent to sexual activity. Thus, under Ohio law, intellectually and/or developmentally disabled individuals may be functionally and irrevocably barred from engaging in sexual intimacy for …

“Categorically Unsafe” To Donate, Marielle Forrest

Utah Law Review

Plasma donation centers routinely adopt policies that preclude individuals with mental illnesses from donating blood plasma. While plasma donation centers assert that their policies are motivated by employee and customer safety, such safety concerns are unsubstantiated. These policies are based on speculation and stereotypes, rather than scientific evidence. But discrimination against people with mental illness is only unlawful if perpetrated by an entity subject to the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), and circuit courts are split on whether blood plasma donation centers fall within the ADA’s parameters. In 2016, the Tenth Circuit held that blood plasma donation centers are “service …

Confidentiality, Warning And Aids: A Proposal To Protect Patients, Third Parties And Physicians

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Medical Necessity Of Residential Treatment For Anorexia: Can Parity Be Achieved?, Abbey Derechin

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

This Note examines the statutory landscape of mental health parity in the United States. The lens of this Note is through the mental illness of anorexia. Parity laws mandate analogous limitations between mental and physical illness. Therefore, because anorexia has many physical manifestations, it serves as a nice juxtaposition to physical illnesses. This Note will argue for broad interpretation of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) through comparative analysis of counterpart statute, the California Mental Health Parity Act (CMHPA). It will explore how courts have interpreted the CMHPA broadly to suggest that the MHPAEA should be interpreted …

To Be, Or Not To Be, Will Long Covid Be Reasonably Accommodated Is The Question, Angélica Guevara

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

Mental Health Care And Intimate Partner Violence: Unasked Questions, Delaney E. Anderson, Richard C. Boldt

Faculty Scholarship

There is significant overlap between the group of people who experience trauma, including domestic or intimate partner violence, and those who are hospitalized for severe mental illness. In recent years there has been a growing awareness in the mental health treatment community of the prevalence of trauma among individuals with behavioral health problems. Despite the strong evidence of elevated rates of exposure to domestic or intimate partner violence among individuals experiencing mental illness (including depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder), mental health professionals often do not effectively address this co-occurring factor in assessing and treating their clients or patients. The …

Evolving Beyond Reasonable Accommodations Towards "Off-Shelf Accessible" Workplaces And Campuses, Karla Gilbride

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

One of the hallmarks of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), which prohibits discrimination in the workplace on the basis of disability, is that it defines “discrimination” to include “not making reasonable accommodations to the known mental or physical limitations of an otherwise qualified individual with a disability.” This concept of reasonable accommodation was seen as innovative in two ways. It recognized that employers must sometimes take affirmative steps or make adaptations to afford individuals with disabilities an equal opportunity to apply for and perform jobs. And it identified the failure to take such affirmative steps as a type of …

An Attempt To Bring Modern Workplace Realities To The Social Security Disability Adjudication System, Robert E. Rains

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

Recommendations On Mature Minors, Constance Macintosh

Reports & Public Policy Documents

Recommendation: The Committee should remove the requirement from the Criminal Code that candidates for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) be at least 18 years old. This is for the following reasons, elaborated upon below.

1.The MAID regime should always turn on the actual capacity of any person requesting MAID

2.The MAID regime’s approach to consent and capacity should be consistent with Canadian law on health care decision-making by minors

3.The MAID regime will likely be found unconstitutional if it maintains an age-based bar

4.The vulnerability of youth may require a different approach but does not justify an age-based bar

5.Removing …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

How To Compromise On Saving The Most Lives: A Commentary On Hellman And Nicholson, “Rationing And Disability”, David Wasserman

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Deborah Hellman and Kate Nicholson’s “Rationing Disability” is a skillfully integrated analysis of the legal and ethical challenges of avoiding disability discrimination in setting priorities for the allocation of scarce lifesaving resources. Their analysis goes beyond the important but narrow question of what it means to wrongfully discriminate against people with disabilities in this context to the broader question of how to find a principled compromise between the consequentialist goals of public health and the potentially conflicting public value of “equal concern and respect” for each person. I will focus on this broader issue.

I agree with much …

Maternity Rights: A Comparative View Of Mexico And The United States, Roberto Rosas

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Women play a large role in the workplace and require additional protection during pregnancy, childbirth, and while raising children. This article compares how Mexico and the United States have approached the issue of maternity rights and benefits. First, Mexico provides eighty-four days of paid leave to mothers, while the United States provides unpaid leave for up to twelve weeks. Second, Mexico allows two thirty-minute breaks a day for breastfeeding, while the United States allows a reasonable amount of time per day to breastfeed. Third, Mexico provides childcare to most federal employees, while the United States provides daycares to a small …

Rationing And Disability: The Civil Rights And Wrongs Of State Triage Protocols, Deborah Hellman, Kate M. Nicholson

Washington and Lee Law Review

The COVID-19 pandemic and the unprecedented natural disasters of 2020 remind us of the importance of emergency preparedness. This Article contributes to our legal and ethical readiness by examining state “Crisis Standards of Care,” which are the standards that determine how medical resources are allocated in times of scarcity. The Article identifies a flaw in the policy choice at the heart of the standards: the standards focus on saving as many lives as possible but, in so doing, will predictably disadvantage the ability of people with disabilities and racial minorities to access life-saving care.

To date, scholarly attention has focused …

The Rise Of Ada Title Iii: How Congress And The Department Of Justice Can Solve Predatory Litigation, Sarah E. Zehentner

Brooklyn Law Review

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted in 1990 to afford equal opportunities for individuals with disabilities. Title III of the ADA, specifically, was enacted to afford disabled individuals equal access to places of public accommodation. When the ADA was enacted, the internet was still in its infancy and Congress did not contemplate the need for governing accessibility to websites of public accommodations. Today, the internet has become embedded in virtually every aspect of our lives, yet there are still millions of disabled individuals who are unable to equally access the websites of American businesses. With the ADA being …

Olmstead As A Tool For Decarceration, Sarah Kahn

UC Irvine Law Review

Olmstead v. L.C. ex rel. Zimring established that the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990’s integrated-care mandate requires the government to make reasonable accommodations to protect the right of people with disabilities to live in the most integrated setting possible. In response, counties began releasing people from restrictive mental-health institutions but did not provide the necessary resources, such as supportive housing and outpatient care, to allow people to live successfully in their communities. As many people contending with disabilities were left homeless and the United States increased its reliance on incarceration, shuttered mental-health institutions gave way to jails and prisons. …

Unilateral Burdens And Third-Party Harms: Abortion Conscience Laws As Policy Outliers, Nadia Sawicki

Indiana Law Journal

Most conscience laws establish nearly absolute protections for health care providers unwilling to participate in abortion. Providers’ rights to refuse—and relatedly, their immunity from civil liability, employment discrimination, and other adverse consequences—are often unqualified, even in situations where patients are likely to be harmed. These laws impose unilateral burdens on third parties in an effort to protect the rights of conscientious refusers. As such, they are outliers in the universe of federal and state anti-discrimination and religious freedom statutes, all of which strike a more even balance between individual rights and the prevention of harm to third parties. This Article …

The Future Of The Americans With Disabilities Act: Website Accessibility Litigation After Covid-19, Randy Pavlicko

Cleveland State Law Review

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted in 1990 to eliminate discrimination against individuals with disabilities. Over time, as society has become more reliant on the internet, the issue of whether the ADA’s scope extends beyond physical places to online technology has emerged. A circuit split developed on this issue, and courts have discussed three interpretations of the ADA’s scope: (1) the ADA applies to physical places only; (2) the ADA applies to a website or mobile app that has a sufficient nexus to a physical place; or (3) the ADA broadly applies beyond physical places to online technology. …

070— Mental Health Parity: What It Is And Why It Matters, Lauren Klein

GREAT Day Posters

While stigma around mental health, as well as treatment options have been drastically improved within the last decade, people who need help still are not getting it. The ultimate issue is the lack of mental health parity, which is defined by the equal treatment and benefits of other health conditions in insurance plans. Benefits such as inpatient in-network & out-of-network, co-pays, deductibles, max limit for out of pocket costs, reimbursement rates, geographic care, and coverage for any type of hospitalization. The lack of these advantages force people into difficult situations in order to receive these services. Paying abundant amounts of …

When Justice Should Precede Generosity: The Case Against Charitable Immunity In Arkansas, Courtney Jane Baltz

Arkansas Law Notes

This Comment discusses various aspects of the modern hospital and examines charitable immunity’s incompatibility with modern law.

First, Part II explains the historical justifications for immunity and presents the doctrine’s landscape in the United States. Part III examines the role precedent plays in continuing to adhere to the rule of immunity. Part IV takes an in-depth approach of the big business of hospitals by evaluating various financial aspects of charitable hospitals. Part V explores the reality of charitable immunity falling out of touch with concepts of modern law. Part VI takes a more specific look at the application of the …

Protecting The Rights And Wellbeing Of People With Disabilities During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Elizabeth Pendo

Chapters in Books

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated significant inequities experienced by people with disabilities. It has also emphasized the value of legal protections against discrimination based on disability. The Americans with Disabilities Act was enacted 30 years ago to eliminate discrimination against people with disabilities and ensure equal opportunity across major areas of American life (ADA, 2008). Together with an earlier law, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Rehabilitation Act, 2012), this landmark civil rights law impacts a broad range of issues raised by the COVID-19 pandemic and protects a large and growing number of Americans. This Chapter focuses on application …

Applying The Health Justice Framework To Address Health And Health Care Inequities Experienced By People With Disabilities During And After Covid-19, Robyn M. Powell

Washington Law Review

The COVID-19 pandemic has been especially devastating for people with disabilities, as well as other socially marginalized communities. Indeed, an emerging body of scholarship has revealed that people with disabilities are experiencing striking disparities. In particular, scholars have shined a light on state and hospital triage policies that allow hospitals to ration critical health care and resources, such as ventilators, for people with disabilities if resources become limited and they cannot treat all patients during the pandemic. These injustices deserve extensive consideration from policymakers, legal professionals, and scholars.

Elucidating how the inequities that people with disabilities experience during the COVID-19 …

Expanding Therapeutic Jurisprudence Across The Federal Judiciary, Benjamin Barsky, Heather Ellis Cucolo, Dominic Sisti

Articles & Chapters

A patchwork of drug courts and other problem-solving courts currently exists to divert individuals with mental illness and substance use disorders away from the criminal justice system. We call for a broader implementation of problem-solving courts, particularly at the federal level, that would operate according to the principles of therapeutic jurisprudence (i.e., a framework that aims to maximize the health benefits of judicial and legislative policies and practices). Expanding federal problem-solving courts will better serve individuals with mental illness and substance use disorders in the federal criminal justice system and allow them to benefit from rehabilitation and diversion programs. This …

Editor, Ethical Challenges In Discharge Planning: Stories From Patients, Elizabeth Pendo

All Faculty Scholarship

This symposium includes twelve personal narratives from patients and their caregivers who have navigated challenges in planning for discharge from the hospital and transition to care at home, a rehabilitation facility, long-term care facility, or hospice. Three commentaries on these narratives are also included, authored by experts and scholars in the fields of medicine, bioethics, and health policy with particular interest in vulnerable populations. The goal of this symposium is to call attention to the experiences of patients during transitions in care and to enrich discussions of ethical issues in discharge planning.

Substance Use Disorder Discrimination And The Cares Act: Using Disability Law To Inform Part 2 Rulemaking, Kelly K. Dineen, Elizabeth Pendo

Articles

Substance use disorder (SUD) is a chronic health condition—like people with other chronic health conditions, people with SUDs experience periods of remission and periods of exacerbation or recurrence. Unlike people with most other chronic conditions, people with SUDs may be more likely to garner law enforcement attention than medical attention during a recurrence. They are also chronically disadvantaged by pervasive social stigma, discrimination, and structural inequities. The COVID-19 pandemic has had devastating consequences for people with SUDs, who are at higher risk for both contracting the SARS-CoV-19 virus and experiencing poorer outcomes. Meanwhile, there are early indications that pandemic conditions …

Employees With Intellectual Disabilities During The Covid-19 Pandemic: New Directions For Disability Anti-Discrimination Law?, Leslie P. Francis

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.