Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Disability Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Disability Law

Who Says You're Disabled? The Role Of Medical Evidence In The Ada Definition Of Disability, Deirdre M. Smith Nov 2007

Who Says You're Disabled? The Role Of Medical Evidence In The Ada Definition Of Disability, Deirdre M. Smith

Faculty Publications

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), enacted by Congress seventeen years ago, offered disabled people a hope of equality and access that has not been fulfilled. 1 Court decisions halt an overwhelming majority of claims, particularly in the employment context, at the summary judgment stage. 2 A key mechanism for fencing out disabled people's claims is the pernicious requirement, based upon the very construction of disability that the ADA's proponents aimed to dispel, that medical evidence is required as a threshold matter to demonstrate that the plaintiff is entitled to seek protection under the statute. 3 The medical evidence requirement …


Hedonic Damages, Hedonic Adaptation, And Disability, Samuel R. Bagenstos, Margo Schlanger Apr 2007

Hedonic Damages, Hedonic Adaptation, And Disability, Samuel R. Bagenstos, Margo Schlanger

Vanderbilt Law Review

Over the past quarter century, the concept of "adaptive preferences" has played an important role in debates in law, economics, and political philosophy. As Professor Jon Elster has described this psychological phenomenon, "people tend to adjust their aspirations to their possibilities." A number of prominent scholars have argued that the existence of adaptive preferences "raises serious problems for neoclassical economics and for unambivalent enthusiasm for freedom of choice." Because our current preferences are constrained by the opportunities available to us, proponents of adaptive preference theory contend, those preferences may not be the best guide to what is in our interests; …


The Social Security Administration's New Disability Adjudication Rules: A Significant And Promising Reform, Jeffrey Lubbers Jan 2007

The Social Security Administration's New Disability Adjudication Rules: A Significant And Promising Reform, Jeffrey Lubbers

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.


Shape Stops Story, Elizabeth F. Emens Jan 2007

Shape Stops Story, Elizabeth F. Emens

Faculty Scholarship

Storytelling and resistance are powerful tools of both lawyering and individual identity, as I argue in this brief essay published in Narrative as part of a dialogue on disability, narrative, and law with Rosemarie Garland-Thompson and Ellen Barton. Garland-Thompson's work shows us the life-affirming potential of storytelling, its role in shaping disability identity, and its role in communicating that identity to the outside world. By contrast, Barton powerfully shows how those same life-affirming narratives can force a certain kind of storytelling, can create a mandate to tell one story and not another. In short, Barton reminds us of the need …