Social Welfare Law Commons^™

Tortious Interference With The Expectancy Of Entitlement Benefits, Paul Caritj

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note proposes a new tort to address employers' and their agents' increasing abuse of the Unemployment Insurance appeals process, which interferes with employees' expectancy of entitlement benefits. Though existing state Unemployment Compensation statutes sanction both unemployed workers claiming benefits and employers for making fraudulent statements, these provisions approach the issue of fraud too narrowly to combat this growing problem. Meanwhile, no existing remedy properly compensates victims of this sort of abuse, adequately deters abusive behavior by scaling the penalty to the harm, and is accessible to economically disadvantaged plaintiffs. As well as providing an analysis of the specific problem …

The Place Of Law In Ivan Illich's Vision Of Social Transformation, Bruce K. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

This Article discusses Ivan Illich’s direction for social reform that led to his book, "Tools for Conviviality", where Illich targeted development, technology, and the exploitation of nature. Illich identified three key cultural institutions that needed to be reclaimed in order to bring about an inversion of industrial society: science, language, and law. This Article focuses on the rule of law and its central institutional invention—formal adjudication.

The Author suggests that Illich’s idealism can still be found in the law reform litigation effort and identifies the diminished stature of the ideal of disinterested adjudication as a significant threat to Illich’s hopes …

Federal/State Tensions In Fulfilling Medicaid’S Purpose, Laura Hermer

Faculty Scholarship

Medicaid has been subject to reconsiderations of the proper role of government in providing for the health and welfare of populations over recent decades. Over the last decade in particular, a number of states have transferred many functions that they once performed to private entities, including, in a number of cases, express policymaking functions. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) takes some crucial steps towards readjusting the equilibrium of Medicaid. Rather than further prioritizing the market in its reforms, it gives the federal government stronger charge of Medicaid policy, refocusing the program more directly on expanding eligibility and …

Equal Protection, Immigrants And Access To Health Care And Welfare Benefits, Mel Cousins

Mel Cousins