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Columbia Law School

Harvard Law Review

1976

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Law

The Definition Of Disability In Social Security And Supplemental Security Income: Drawing The Bounds Of Social Welfare Estates, Lance Liebman Jan 1976

The Definition Of Disability In Social Security And Supplemental Security Income: Drawing The Bounds Of Social Welfare Estates, Lance Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

Federal aid to the disabled is a vast enterprise; over nine billion dollars are annually paid to five million beneficiaries. In this Article, Professor Liebman points out how the ad hoc nature of social welfare legislation and programming has resulted in a system that produces inconsistent and sometimes inequitable determinations of disability. The present system, he argues, draws significant economic and social distinctions among the disabled, as well as distinctions between the disabled and the unemployed, that have been inadequately explained and justified. By focusing on worker expectations generated by the administration of our disability programs, and on the structural …


The Metamorphosis Of Larceny, George P. Fletcher Jan 1976

The Metamorphosis Of Larceny, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

To the modern lawyer, the rules of common law theft offenses do not seem ordered by any coherent principle. In this Article, however, Professor Fletcher shows that the common law of larceny can be understood in terms of two structural principles, possessorial immunity and manifest criminality. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as the modern style of legal thought evolved, first commentators and then courts lost their ability to understand these principles and came to rely on intent as the central element of criminal liability. As a result of this transformation, Professor Fletcher argues, the range of circumstances that can …


Class Actions, Richard Briffault Jan 1976

Class Actions, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

In 1966, the Supreme Court promulgated an amended rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, replacing a rule that had remained unchanged since 1938. The 1938 rule, which was understood to reflect Professor Moore's famous distinctions among "true," "hybrid," and "spurious" class suits, proved to be a source of confusion almost from its date of promulgation, and by i966 courts were having great difficulty applying the concepts of joint and several rights the rule relied upon to define cases appropriate for class treatment. Commentators ignored the terms of the rule and sought justification for conclusive adjudication of absentee …