Social Welfare Law Commons^™

Unequal Access To Justice: Solla V. Berlin And The Unprincipled Evisceration Of New York’S Eaja, Armen H. Merjian

Pace Law Review

Solla is noteworthy not merely in light of the baleful effects of its ruling, but because of its reasoning: it is categorically wrong. The decision wholly elides a cornerstone and settled principle of New York welfare law, namely, that in the administration of public assistance, the municipalities act as the agents of the State, while blatantly violating the most fundamental of agency principles, namely, that a principal is vicariously liable for the actions of its agent acting within the scope of its authority. Indeed, this principal/agent relationship is established both by statute and by decades of uniform state and federal …

Slaying The Dragon: How The Law Can Help Rehab A Country In Crisis, Samantha Kopf

Pace Law Review

Motor-vehicle-related deaths consistently topped the accidental death count in the United States for decades. In 2009, for the first time, drug poisoning took over as the number one accidental killer. In 1980, approximately 6,100 people died from drug overdose. In the past ten years, the drug overdose rate for males and females, regardless of race, ethnicity and age, increased. In 2000, 4.1 per 100,000 people died from unintentional drug overdose; in 2010, that number rose to 9.7 per 100,000. The drug overdose epidemic, now the leading cause of unintentional death in the United States, warrants national attention.

To reduce the …