Law Commons^™

Smithers, What's The Name Of This Gastropod? King-Size Homer And The Social Security Administration's Subjective Evaluation Of Fatness, Chris E. Pashler

Chris E Pashler

The Social Security Administration has recently come under criticism for its subjective evaluation of disability claims. Recent studies of the Agency’s decisions indicate that great variances in allowance rates continue to exist within the ALJ corps. These variations in decision making are a challenge to the Agency’s credibility, given the real likelihood that disability applications filed by similarly situated adults are treated differently by the ALJ corps. Prior works have looked at inconsistency at different levels in the disability certification process, but this scholarship has not sufficiently examined why similarly situated claimants are treated differently by the Agency. This article, …

The Structural Exceptionalism Of Bankruptcy Administration, Rafael I. Pardo, Kathryn A. Watts

Scholarship@WashULaw

The current system of administration of the Bankruptcy Code is highly anomalous. It stands as one of the few major federal civil statutory regimes administered almost exclusively through adjudication in the courts, not through a federal regulatory agency. This means that rather than fitting bankruptcy into a regulatory model, Congress has chosen to give the courts primary interpretive authority in the field of bankruptcy, delegating to courts the power to engage in residual policymaking. Although scholars have noted some narrow aspects of the structural exceptionalism of bankruptcy administration, Congress’s decision to locate responsibility for bankruptcy policymaking almost exclusively with the …

The Chevron Two-Step In Georgia's Administrative Law, David Shipley

Scholarly Works

The Georgia Supreme Court and Court of Appeals have long accepted the General Assembly’s authority to enact legislation that establishes administrative agencies and empowers those agencies to promulgate rules and regulations to implement their enabling statutes. In addition, the Georgia Constitution provides that the General Assembly may authorize agencies to exercise quasi-judicial powers. Administrative agencies with broad powers enjoy a secure position under Georgia law.

Like federal and state administrative agencies throughout the nation, Georgia’s many boards, commissions and authorities make policy when they apply their governing statutes in promulgating regulations of general applicability, and in ruling on specific matters …

"Deference" Is Too Confusing – Let's Call Them "Chevron Space" And "Skidmore Weight", Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay suggests an underappreciated, appropriate, and conceptually coherent structure to the Chevron relationship of courts to agencies, grounded in the concept of "allocation." Because the term "deference" muddles rather than clarifies the structure's operation, this Essay avoids speaking of "Chevron deference" and "Skidmore deference." Rather, it argues, one could more profitably think in terms of "Chevron space" and "Skidmore weight." "Chevron space" denotes the area within which an administrative agency has been statutorily empowered to act in a manner that creates legal obligations or constraints – that is, its allocated authority. "Skidmore weight" …

Tax Compliance And Norm Formation Under High-Penalty Regimes, Susan Morse

Susan Cleary Morse

Skepticism about the potential of moral appeals relating to tax compliance -- for example, as applied to large groups of individual taxpayers outside a wartime context -- has resulted in the absence of a theory about how salient government communication can further tax compliance. This Article fills that gap. It provides a comprehensive theory of tax compliance and norm formation under high-penalty regimes from the starting point of a non-compliance norm.

The theory explains the roles of and mutually reinforcing relationships between the compliance mechanisms of deterrence, separation and reputation signaling. The success of these mechanisms depends on the presence …

Interests In The Balance: Fda Regulations Under The Biologics Price Competition And Innovation Act, Parker Tresemer

Parker Tresemer

Recent biotechnology advances are yielding potentially life-saving therapies, but without FDA regulations designed to minimize product costs, patients will continue to be unable to afford these expensive biologic products. Many believe that these prohibitive costs stem from weak competition from generic biologic products, also known as follow-on biologics. To correct this deficiency, and to address the often conflicting regulatory and policy concerns associated with biologic products, Congress enacted the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act. The Act created an abbreviated approval pathway for biologic products and, if effective, could increase competition while driving down product costs. But legislation alone is …

The Immigrant And Miranda, Anjana Malhotra

Anjana Malhotra

The recent dramatic convergence of immigration and criminal law is transforming the immigration and criminal justice system. While scholars have begun to examine some of the structural implications of this convergence, this article breaks new ground by examining judicial responses, and specifically the sharply divergent approaches that federal appellate courts have used to determine whether Miranda warnings must be given to immigrants during custodial interrogations about their immigration status that have both criminal and civil implications.

Democracy And Administrative Legitimacy, David J. Arkush

David J. Arkush

This Essay examines the three ideals that underlie most models of administrative legitimacy—the rule of law, sound public policy, and democracy—as well as their associated models of administration, and it argues that administrative legitimacy efforts are best focused on the democracy ideal. Reforms guided by the rule of law and public policy ideals have far less potential to contribute to administrative legitimacy for two reasons: there is little evidence that the ideals are underserved in present administration, and each ideal suffers from deep conceptual problems that inherently limit its contributions.

Reforms driven principally by the democracy ideal also have fallen …

Changing Voices In A Familiar Conversation About Rules Vs. Standards: Veterans Law At The Federal Circuit In 2011, James Ridgway

James D. Ridgway

This review of the Federal Circuit's veterans benefits case law in 2011 suggests that a familiar struggle between rules and standards lurks under the surface of some of the more familiar debates in veterans law. In particular, it suggests that the struggle between Chevron deference and Gardner’s rule of resolving ambiguity in favor of the veteran can be framed this way. It also suggests that the rules-versus-standards framing can be used to better understand the debate about what it means for the benefits system to be veteran friendly. In addition, this article addresses the changing dynamics surrounding veterans law and …

Fda Accelerated Approval Program: Why Brake When You Can Get A Mandate?, Keren Frumkin

Keren F. Bisnauth

The FDA approval process is designed to ensure that the drugs released for public consumption are safe and effective. In 1992, the FDA implemented the Accelerated Approval process in order to expedite the approval of drugs to aid patients with life-threatening illnesses, who have little to gain from lengthy approval processes, and who cannot risk worsening health conditions. However, the questionable post-approval practices of drug manufacturers, coupled with the lax FDA enforcement of its required follow-up protocols have raised doubts as to the true value of expedited approval procedures, as well as an influx of drug recalls and lawsuits. In …