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Inaction As A State Response To The Coronavirus Outbreak: Unconstitutionality By Omission, Antonios Kouroutakis

Seattle University Law Review Online

The World Health Organization on March 11 declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. While the pandemic was spreading across the globe, governments were under pressure to respond. Still, some countries during the first wave of the pandemic, in their first reaction, did not put in place any emergency regulations. Such reaction, which was a policy option, was an intended omission as lawmakers and policy makers decided not to take action and such emergency omission was a novelty and a paradox in emergency situations. Moreover, I argue that during emergencies governments have a distinct duty to act, and I offer …

Changes To Material Adverse Effect Clauses Following Major Events: Evidence From Covid-19, Vincent Scala

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

In November 2019, LVMH Moët Hennessey Louis Vuitton, the world’s leading luxury goods company, announced plans to acquire Tiffany & Company, the prominent American jeweler. The transaction was reported to be worth more than $16 billion, which would have been the largest deal ever in the luxury goods industry. Following the announcement, LVMH’s chief executive officer stated that Tiffany would “thrive for centuries to come.” Nearly ten months later, the acquisition was in shambles as the parties squared off in a legal battle in the Delaware Court of Chancery. The companies were driven to litigation over anxieties about the …

Categorically Caged: The Case For Extending Early Release Eligibility To Inmates With Violent Offense Convictions, Jenna M. Codignotto

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Susan Farrell faced both physical and sexual abuse from her husband before he was killed in 1989. Although Ms. Farrell maintained her innocence and urged that it was her son who killed her husband, she was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy charges, resulting in a life sentence without parole. After serving thirty years of her sentence at the Michigan Department of Corrections, Ms. Farrell’s tragic life met a no less tragic end. In April 2020, one month after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, Ms. Farrell seized in her cell for forty-five minutes before dying from the virus. She …

Fair Allocation Of Scarce Therapies For Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19), Govind C. Persad, Monica E. Peek, Seema K. Shah

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued emergency use authorizations (EUAs) for monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) for nonhospitalized patients with mild or moderate coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) disease and for individuals exposed to COVID-19 as postexposure prophylaxis. EUAs for oral antiviral drugs have also been issued. Due to increased demand because of the Delta variant, the federal government resumed control over the supply and asked states to ration doses. As future variants (e.g., the Omicron variant) emerge, further rationing may be required. We identify relevant ethical principles (i.e., benefiting people and preventing harm, equal concern, and mitigating health inequities) …

Using Insurance To Regulate Food Safety: Field Notes From The Food Produce Sector, Timothy D. Lytton

New Mexico Law Review

Foodborne illness is a public health problem of pandemic proportions. In the United States alone, contaminated food sickens an estimated 48 million consumers annually, causing 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths. Nowhere is this crisis more acute than in the fresh produce sector, where microbial contamination in growing fields and packing houses has been responsible for many of the nation’s largest and deadliest outbreaks.

This Article examines emerging efforts by private insurance companies to regulate food safety on farms that grow fresh produce.

Previous studies of using insurance to regulate food safety rely on economic theories that yield competing conclusions. Optimists …

And Then There Were Two: Splitting South Carolina's Department Of Health And Environmental Control, Arslan S. Valimohamed

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Protecting Free Speech And Due Process Values On Dominant Social Media Platforms, Dawn Carla Nunziato

UC Law Journal

Dominant social media platforms have been increasingly perceived as engaging in discrimination against conservative and right-wing viewpoints. Trump’s deplatforming, coupled with the platforms’ recent removal of Covid- and election-related misinformation, led to cries of censorship by conservatives and increased calls for regulation of the platforms. Supreme Court Justice Thomas took up this charge, suggesting a regulatory path forward for lawmakers seeking to hold the platforms liable for alleged viewpoint discrimination and censorship.

This Article examines the desirability and constitutionality of recent legislative initiatives that seek to provide remedies for these alleged ills and to rein in the dominant platforms’ discretion …

Does Public Health Start Within Jails? A New Incentive For Reform Of Wisconsin's Bail System, Mahmood N. Abdellatif

Marquette Law Review

Wisconsin’s Milwaukee and Dane Counties are among many jurisdictions in the country employing modern bail reforms, specifically the Public Safety Assessment (PSA). Most of these jurisdictions adopted the PSA before the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, but are increasingly relevant as the virus continues to derail public health measures. Through the intersection of detainees, correctional officers, judicial officials, attorneys, and visitors, millions of Americans filter in and out of correctional facilities on an annual basis. These facilities serve as a microcosm of society and breeding ground for mass infection. The COVID-19 pandemic amplified an existing need …

Without Accommodation, Jennifer B. Shinall

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), workers with disabilities have the legal right to reasonable workplace accommodations provided by employers. Because this legal right is unique to disabled workers, these workers could, in theory, enjoy greater access to the types of accommodations that are desirable to all workers including the ability to work from home, to work flexible hours, and to take leave. This Article compares access to these accommodations, which have become increasingly desirable during the COVID-19 pandemic, between disabled workers and nondisabled workers. Using 2017-2018 data from the American Time Use Survey's Leave and Job Flexibilities Module, …

Richmond Law Magazine: Summer 2022, University Of Richmond

Richmond Law Magazine

The Power of Second Chances

Dispatches from Afar

A New Legacy?

A Parallel Infodemic: Multifaceted Approaches To Online Public Health Mis- And Disinformation During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Erin Hutchins

UC Law Journal

During the COVID-19 pandemic, communities congregated in online spaces more than ever before. While some people found solidarity online, many others found snippets of false information regarding COVID-19’s origin, transmission, and preventative measures. Inaccurate public health information originated long before the COVID-19 pandemic, but it thrived as the uncertainty around daily living dragged on. The pandemic prompted a conversation about who, if anyone, is responsible for deciphering and regulating the spread of false and misleading information. This Note presents two methods in which inaccurate information can be redressed. First, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—which provides sweeping immunity for …

Adr Provisions To Inoculate The Vaccine Industry From Governmental Ip Takings, Mark Buck

Journal of Dispute Resolution

It started with a cough. It continued with a fever. After several days of treatment with over-the-counter medications without improvement, it became clear that Victor Villarroel Saavedra, an unvaccinated but otherwise in good health Bolivian physician, had contracted COVID-19 in the summer of 2020. By this point, Victor’s options were limited: seek at-home care or go to the hospital. After a few days of in-home care with nasal canal oxygen and nursing/physician oversight, he was eventually transferred to a hospital where he passed within the week. This all could have been avoided with a simple jab in the otherwise healthy …

Economic Impact Payments: How The Cares Act Failed To Care For America’S Homeless Population, Megan Cicotte

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

What The Harm Principle Says About Vaccination And Healthcare Rationing, Christopher Robertson

Faculty Scholarship

Clinical ethicists hold near consensus on the view that healthcare should be provided regardless of patients’ past behaviors. In classic cases, the consensus can be explained by two key rationales—a lack of acute scarcity and the intractability of the facts around those behaviors, which make discrimination on past behavior gratuitous and infeasible to do fairly. Healthcare providers have a duty to help those who can be helped. In contrast, the COVID-19 pandemic suggests the possible recurrence of a very different situation, where a foreseeable acute shortage of healthcare resources means that some cannot be helped. And that shortage is exacerbated …

Subsidizing The Unvaccinated: Considering The Legality And Practicality Of Vaccine Mandates For Those On Public Assistance, Michael Conklin

Journal of Legislation

No abstract provided.

The President’S Remedy–What The Hydroxychloroquine Story Teaches Us About The Need To Limit Off-Lable Prescribing Powers, Jennifer Bard

Catholic University Law Review

When the history of the first year of the United States Government’s response to the COVID-19 virus is written, there is likely to be mention of the still unexplained vehemence with which then president Donald J. Trump made use of his access to social media to promote seldom used anti-malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, for both the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 despite the active growing opposition of most of the world’s scientists, including his own government scientists. While the use of drugs developed and approved by the FDA for different purposes to combat new diseases, off-label prescribing, is legal in the …

What Covid-19 Laid Bare: Adventures In Workers’ Compensation Causation, Michael C. Duff

San Diego Law Review

This Article performs a close analysis of workers’ compensation coverage of COVID-19 and arrives at the conclusion that it should not be “impossible” to prove in a legal sense that an employee’s COVID-19 was caused by work. Scientific proof is not the same as legal proof: Workers’ compensation law has never required that claims must be supported by irrefutable scientific proof of workplace causation. Yet repeatedly one heard this suggestion during public discussion on workers’ compensation coverage of employees.

Still, there is good evidence that even when workers’ compensation undisputedly covers work-related disease, employers seldom pay benefits and states do …

A Heritage Of Bias: From Naturalization And Immigration Laws In The Late 19th To Early 20th Centuries To Contemporary Bias Against Muslims And Latines, William D. Popkin

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

The Federal Global Migration And Quarantine Network: A Report From The National Academies Of Sciences, Engineering, And Medicine, Lawrence O. Gostin, Georges C. Benjamin, Tequam Worku

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The COVID-19 pandemic thrust the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Global Migration and Quarantine (DGMQ) into the epicenter of the national response. DGMQ is charged with preventing the importation of infectious diseases at land and sea borders and the spread of those diseases within the US. For more than 50 years, the agency’s comprehensive quarantine system, its regulatory powers, and scientific guidance has placed DGMQ at the forefront of emergency response. CDC requested the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) to assess the performance of the DGMQ during the COVID-19 pandemic, covering 5 …

Cafo’S Are A Public Health Crisis:The Creation Of Covid-19, Helena Masiello

University of Miami Law Review

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (“CAFO’s”) are largely unregulated by State or Federal Laws in the United States. As a result of this lack of oversight, they are a breeding ground for deadly infectious diseases. The COVID-19 epidemic has demonstrated the threat that diseases pose to the United State like H1N1, SARS, and Ebola.
The USDA needs to regulate CAFOs under the mandate given to them by congress in the AHPA to ensure that they are not the epicenter of the next wave of deadly infectious diseases. Scientists have been warning about the disease potential of CAFOs for the last decade, …

The Post-Pandemic Order: A Blueprint For Balancing Health And Ip Interests In The Age Of Covid Variants, Arjun Padmanabhan, Tanner J. Wadsworth

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

In December 2021, the World Health Assembly (“WHA”) convened to develop a pandemic response treaty for future pandemics. Unfortunately, as presently envisioned, the resulting pandemic response framework will suffer from many of the same inadequacies that prevented existing frameworks from responding effectively to COVID-19. The threat of new pandemics emerging in the future—and new variants developing in the present—call for a more integrated, robust, comprehensive solution.

This Article lays a blueprint for that solution: a global multilateral Council empowered to (1) investigate developing pandemics; (2) incentivize pharmaceutical companies to rapidly-produce vaccines and share them through voluntary licenses or TRIPS compulsory …

The Pandemic And Privacy: The Global Culture Of Intrusion, Jon L. Mills, Lucca Viana, Danielle Black

Legislation and Policy Brief

No abstract provided.

Asean-Korea Strategic Partnership In New Asian Regionalism, Rachel Liting Chang

Centre for Commercial Law in Asia

Over the past two decades, Asia has witnessed increasing regional trade integration with the rapid increase of free trade agreements (FTAs), constituting almost half of global trade pacts. Such a phenomenon has been said to give rise to “new Asian regionalism”, which is defined as a fundamental change in the multilateral trading system. It is a novel and normative integration process which focuses on ASEAN, and in particular the ASEAN Plus Six framework underlying Asia’s increasing economic power.

The Post-Pandemic Order: A Blueprint For Balancing Health And Ip Interests In The Age Of Covid Variants, Arjun Padmanabhan, Tanner J. Wadsworth

Student Scholarship

In December 2021, the World Health Assembly (“WHA”) convened to develop a pandemic response treaty for future pandemics. Unfortunately, as presently envisioned, the resulting pandemic response framework will suffer from many of the same inadequacies that prevented existing frameworks from responding effectively to COVID-19. The threat of new pandemics emerging in the future—and new variants developing in the present—call for a more integrated, robust, comprehensive solution.

This Article lays a blueprint for that solution: a global multilateral Council empowered to(1) investigate developing pandemics; (2) incentivize pharmaceutical companies to rapidly-produce vaccines and share them through voluntary licenses or TRIPS compulsory licensing …

Redefining Risk: Judicially Heightened Risk Standards And Hiv-Specific Criminal Laws, Bryan Olert

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Regulating Personal Data Usage In Covid-19 Control Conditions, Mark Findlay, Nydia Remolina

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Concern has been widely expressed about the potential for COVID-19 control technologies and resultant data sharing negatively impacting on civil rights, invading personal privacy, undermining citizen dignity through expansive data matching and ultimately providing opportunities for data use well beyond the brief of virus mitigation. This chapter offers suggestions regarding effective and inclusive regulatory responses when faced with extended surveillance, tracking/tracing, public/private provider data sharing and any breakdown in personal data firewalls, or otherwise conventional aggregated data deviations and distortion. In doing so, the chapter explores personal data usage in the context of COVID-19 as a regulatory enterprise. It addresses …

American Contagions: Epidemics And The Law From Smallpox To Covid-19 By John Fabian Witt, Stephanie Cho

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

At the time of writing, the coronavirus known as COVID-19 has swept across the world and affected nearly every aspect of daily life as we know it. Canada has had approximately 20 thousand deaths and about 780 thousand total cases and the United States has had over 400 thousand deaths and more than 25 million total cases.

Parens Patriae, Punishment, And Pandemics: The State’S Responsibility For Incarcerated Persons During A Public Health Emergency, Meredith Harrell

Journal of Law and Health

This article looks at the nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic since March 2020 and explores the commonalities and differences of states’ actions to protect their citizens, especially the most vulnerable populations. The article discusses the government’s obligations to jailees and prisoners during the COVID-19 pandemic and how incarcerated persons have been consistently failed by the institutions that are required to protect them. The article examines possible remedies for these governmental and institutional failings under the Eighth Amendment and § 1983 civil rights claims. Ultimately the article proposes that monetary damages would provide relief to incarcerated individuals and their families …

International Rights Affecting The Covid–19 Vaccine Race, Samantha Johnson

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

The impact of the COVID–19 pandemic has been felt world-wide, and despite having several vaccines in the market at this point, there are still issues of accessibility for certain countries. International intellectual property law has been a breeding ground for the exploration of intellectual curiosity and creation as it provides strong protections to creators. These strong protections have allowed for the monopolization of certain goods, such as vaccines, under the concept of patents. While patents are important to incentivize pharmaceutical companies to create life–saving medicines, these protections have also become a barrier for access to medicines, especially in less–developed countries. …

Law School News: Dr. Fauci Calls On Rwu Graduates To Preserve 'Truth Justice, Diversity And Equality' 05/20/2022, Jill Rodrigues, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.