Medical Jurisprudence Commons^™

The Esg Information System, Stavros Gadinis, Amelia Miazad

Seattle University Law Review

The mounting focus on ESG has forced internal corporate decision-making into the spotlight. Investors are eager to support companies in innovative “green” technologies and scrutinize companies’ transition plans. Activists are targeting boards whose decisions appear too timid or insufficiently explained. Consumers and employees are incorporating companies sustainability credentials in their purchasing and employment decisions. These actors are asking companies for better information, higher quality reports, and granular data. In response, companies are producing lengthy sustainability reports, adopting ambitious purpose statements, and touting their sustainability credentials. Understandably, concerns about greenwashing and accountability abound, and policymakers are preparing for action.

In this …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

The Marijuana Insurgency: Federalism And Social Reframing In Policy Reform, Matthew P. Cavedon

Seattle University Law Review

After fifty years of federal prohibition, marijuana reform efforts have won political and legal success. These victories hold lessons for anyone seeking to resist federal law without being able to directly affect it.

Victory can come from reframing an issue. For marijuana reform, social reframing—not formal legal analysis or material factors—provides the best explanation for how advocates achieved change. Their unconventional political tactics, akin to those used by insurgents in wartime, undercut federal prohibition by winning hearts and minds.

This is an analysis of the sociology of legal change. It is also the story of how ordinary Americans retook personal …

What Is In Your Tampon? Increasing Transparency In Menstrual Products, Elianna Spitzer

Seattle University Law Review

The average person who menstruates will bleed for an average of five days, every twenty-four to thirty-eight days, over several decades and could use thousands of disposable menstrual products in their lifetime. Menstrual products line retail shelves. They can be found in homes, bags, and bodies—but until 2021, manufacturers were not required to disclose the ingredients used to make these products to consumers at all. In fact, they still are not federally required to disclose menstrual product ingredients on product packaging. Instead, in recent years, changes to menstrual product labels have largely been the result of state legislation. In 2019, …

Medical Research Without Consent? It's Like Deja Vu All Over Again, Lois Shepherd, Donna Chen

Indiana Law Journal

When patients seek medical care, they trust their physician to offer treatments that are in their best medical interests and to engage them in a shared decision-making process to determine the best way forward. But today, in hospitals and doctors’ offices around the country, physicians also place patients in research studies that randomly assign them to a standard of care treatment, sometimes without the patients’ knowledge or consent. In such studies, patients may receive a treatment that results in worse outcomes for them, some of which can be serious and permanent. What’s more, there are reasons to be concerned that …

Conducting Research With Highly Portable Mri In Community Settings: A Practical Guide To Navigating Ethical Issues And Elsi Checklist, Francis X. Shen, Susan M. Wolf, Frances P. Lawrenz, Donnella S. Comeau, Barbara J. Evans, Damien A. Fair, Martha J. Farah, Michael Garwood, Duke Han, Judy Illes, Jonathan D. Jackson, Eran Klein, Matthew S. Rosen, Efraín Torres, Paul Tuite, J. Thomas Vaughan

UF Law Faculty Publications

Highly portable and accessible MRI technology will allow researchers to conduct field-based MRI research in community settings. Previous guidance for researchers working with fixed MRI does not address the novel ethical, legal, and societal issues (ELSI) of portable MRI (pMRI). Our interdisciplinary Working Group (WG) previously identified 15 core ELSI challenges associated with pMRI research and recommended solutions. In this article, we distill those detailed recommendations into a Portable MRI Research ELSI Checklist that offers practical operational guidance for researchers contemplating using this technology.

Ethical Oversight And Social Licensing Of Portable Mri Research, Barbara J. Evans

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article explores two questions: (1) whether portable MRI research might escape regulatory oversight altogether under existing U.S. privacy and research ethical frameworks, leaving research participants without adequate protections, and (2) whether existing regulatory frameworks, when they do apply, can guard society’s broader interest in ensuring that portable MRI research pursues socially beneficial, ethically sound aims that minimize the potential for externalities affecting nonparticipating individuals and groups, who might be stigmatized or otherwise harmed even if they decline participation in the research.

Dockray V. Roger Williams Med. Ctr., 295 A.3d 68 (R.I. 2023)., Natalie E. Deangelis

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Shareholder Primacy Versus Shareholder Accountability, William W. Bratton

Seattle University Law Review

When corporations inflict injuries in the course of business, shareholders wielding environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) principles can, and now sometimes do, intervene to correct the matter. In the emerging fact pattern, corporate social accountability expands out of its historic collectivized frame to become an internal subject matter—a corporate governance topic. As a result, shareholder accountability surfaces as a policy question for the first time. The Big Three index fund managers, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, responded to the accountability question with ESG activism. In so doing, they defected against corporate legal theory’s central tenet, shareholder primacy. Shareholder primacy builds …

Verses Turned To Verdicts: Ysl Rico Case Sets A High-Watermark For The Legal Pseudo-Censorship Of Rap Music, Nabil Yousfi

Seattle University Law Review

Whichever way you spin the record, rap music and courtrooms don’t mix. On one side, rap records are well known for their unapologetic lyrical composition, often expressing a blatant disregard for legal institutions and authorities. On the other, court records reflect a Van Gogh’s ear for rap music, frequently allowing rap lyrics—but not similar lyrics from other genres—to be used as criminal evidence against the defendants who authored them. Over the last thirty years, this immiscibility has engendered a legal landscape where prosecutors wield rap lyrics as potent instruments for criminal prosecution. In such cases, color-blind courts neglect that rap …

Medical Taking Of Human Biological Material V. Traditional “Art Looting”: Henrietta Lacks And The Complex Ethical And Legal Liability Questions Raised By Her Unfortunate Case, Alyaa Chace

Touro Law Review

During a poignant saga of American history, Henrietta Lacks stands as an emblem of both scientific triumph and ethical controversy. In 1951, Mrs. Lacks, a tobacco farmer and mother of five, visited Johns Hopkins Hospital for treatment of what was later discovered to be advanced stage cervical cancer. Her doctors treated her with radium, which was standard practice at the time. However, Mrs. Lacks’s cancer rapidly metastasized and she ultimately passed away just months later on October 4, 1951, at the age of 31. During the course of her treatment, Mrs. Lacks’s cells were non-consensually removed for purposes of scientific …

A Philosophical Look Into The Morality And Legality Of Abortion, Alexis J. Agnew

Honors College Theses

In his Nicomachean Ethics, Greek philosopher Aristotle posits an understanding of ethics and how human life is characterized by the “good.” Aristotle argues that (I) ethics involve humans possessing a rational capacity and specific function; (II) ethics are habitual, and the “doctrine of the mean” is used to gauge proper action; and (III) justice is linked to virtue. A moral issue that can be analyzed through Aristotle’s Ethics, as well as works of contemporary philosophers, is abortion. Abortion has been a controversial topic and has been brought before the Supreme Court to determine its morality and legality. Using …

Beyond Medical Tourism: Pressured Exits And Global Health Justice, Medha D. Makhlouf

Faculty Scholarly Works

Too often, people living in the United States are compelled to take extreme measures to get the medical care they need. Most often, due to the cost, they delay or go without care. They also decline to fill prescriptions or take less medication than prescribed. Many rack up enormous debts to health care providers and other lenders. Others stand in long lines for free clinics, or they spend hours filling out applications for hospital financial assistance programs and gathering copious documentation to support them. Some people seek care from alternative providers or traditional healers because of cost concerns, while others …

The Future Of Health Care Conscience Law Post-Dobbs, Nadia N. Sawicki

Faculty Publications & Other Works

The Supreme Court's rejection of a constitutional right to choose abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization has prompted legislatures to make significant changes to state laws. Some states have criminalized abortion in most circumstances, while others have granted patients and health care providers broader rights to choose and access abortion. Another, perhaps less-recognized, avenue for legislative change is by amending existing state conscience laws. This Article describes the avenues state legislatures might take in using conscience laws to impact abortion access in accordance with the state's policy preferences.

Minnesota's Criminalization Of Assisted Suicide: A Failure To Protect Minnesota Citizens' Right To Free Speech, Haley M. Bauman

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

We Shall Overcome: The Evolution Of Quotas In The Land Of The Free And The Home Of Samba, Stella Emery Santana

Seattle University Law Review

When were voices given to the voiceless? When will education be permitted to all? When will we need to protest no more? It’s the twenty-first century, and the fight for equity in higher education remains a challenge to peoples all over the world. While students in the United States must deal with the increase in loans, in Brazil, only around 20% of youth between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-four have a higher education degree.

The primary objective of this Article is to conduct an in-depth comparative analysis of the development, implementation, and legal adjudication of educational quota systems within …

Pacific Islands And The U.S. Military: The Legal Borderlands Of The Environmental Movement, Sonia Lei

Seattle University Law Review

Climate change remains an urgent, ongoing global issue that requires critical examination of institutional polluters. This includes the world’s largest institutional consumer of petroleum: the United States military. The Department of Defense (DoD) is a massive institution with little oversight, a carbon footprint spanning the globe, a budget greater than the next ten largest nations combined, and overly generous exemptions to environmental regulations and carbon reduction targets. This Comment examines how this lack of accountability and oversight plays out in the context of three Pacific islands that have hosted U.S. military bases for decades. By considering the environmental impact of …

Noonan V. Sambandam, 296 A.3d 670 (R.I. 2023)., Grant E. Mooney

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Conceptual Schemes/Frameworks And Their Relation To Law: A New Argument For Separation Of Church And State, Vincent J. Samar

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

A central question that arises when interpreting the U.S. Constitution is which theory of interpretation is the best? In his recent book, "How to Interpret the Constitution," Cass Sunstein reviews various theories of constitutional interpretation currently in vogue and then offers what he believes would be the best approach going forward. In this Article, I want to take up a more basic question presupposed by the very idea of a theory of interpretation. That is, whether it is even possible to arrive at more than a provisional understanding of what would be the best interpretation in any given area of …

Vecchio V. Women & Infants Hosp., 293 A.3d 842 (R.I. 2023)., Kailey Chalmers

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why Medical Error Is Killing You (And Everyone Else), Phoebe Jean-Pierre

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In 2000, the infamous report To Err is Human rocked society with its focus on the pervasive danger of medical error. More than two decades later, medical error rates remain high and pose a consistent danger to patients. Today, medical error ranks as the fourth leading cause of death behind heart disease, cancer, and COVID-19. Medical error reflects the vulnerabilities of the healthcare process and may be diagnostic in nature. A large concern in responding to medical error is an overemphasis on blame and the idea that good physicians do not make mistakes. Our perspective on how to address medical …

Black Maternal Mortality Rate: Improving Outcomes For Black Mothers Using Legislation That Reverses The Effects Of Structural Racism In Medicine, Ashley Pattain

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Autism And Access To Healthcare, Amanda Forbes

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Navigating The Frontiers Of Medtech, Benjamin Sundholm

Faculty Publications

The medical community is increasingly focused on the rise of adaptive and opaque artificial intelligence tools. These systems improve over time but produce results through complex calculations that are difficult for humans to fully understand. Although promising, these features challenge existing legal doctrines. To date, efforts to overcome these challenges have been too fragmented and limited in scope. As a result, the full promise of adaptive and opaque artificial intelligence systems remains untapped.

This Article proposes a framework for unleashing the potential of these systems through a blend of forward- and backward-looking reforms. The ex ante feature of my framework …

The Consumer’S Choice To Boycott, Agnes Bresee

Seattle University Law Review

In the wake of employees losing their jobs upon voicing their political opinions concerning Israel, Harvard and Columbia law students’ job offers being rescinded upon expressing support for Palestine, and the names and social media profiles of individuals who support Palestine being collected and listed on Canary Mission, such backlash may leave many Americans wondering what form of resistance to settler-colonialist apartheid is acceptable in the twenty-first century. Recently, the movement to collectively boycott brands like Starbucks, which sued its Worker’s Union for a tweet expressing support for Palestine; Disney, which donated money to Israel; and McDonald’s, where a location …

Use Of Collaborative Governance In Passing Effective Abortion Laws In Texas To Decrease Rates Of Injury, Criminal Penalties, And Civil Litigation, Nowshin Nawal

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

No abstract provided.

Taiwan's Medical Injury Law In Action, Chih-Ming Liang, Robert B Leflar, Chih-Cheng Wu

Emory International Law Review

Taiwan’s healthcare system, lauded internationally for its universal insurance coverage, moderate costs, and high quality of care, has one significant group of detractors: its physicians. Overworked, squeezed financially by the nation’s global budgeting system’s annual payment restrictions, and oppressed by both criminal prosecutions and civil malpractice actions, doctors and hospitals raised criticisms that culminated in legislative reforms enacted in 2017 and 2022. Are the reforms making any difference?

This Article offers the first comprehensive examination in English of how Taiwan’s medical injury law works. The Article is based on interviews with judges, attorneys, physicians, scholars, and other citizens, literature reviews, …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

A Different Approach To Agency Theory And Implications For Esg, Jonathan Bonham, Amoray Riggs-Cragun

Seattle University Law Review

In conventional agency theory, the agent is modeled as exerting unobservable “effort” that influences the distribution over outcomes the principal cares about. Recent papers instead allow the agent to choose the entire distribution, an assumption that better describes the extensive and flexible control that CEOs have over firm outcomes. Under this assumption, the optimal contract rewards the agent directly for outcomes the principal cares about, rather than for what those outcomes reveal about the agent’s effort. This article briefly summarizes this new agency model and discusses its implications for contracting on ESG activities.

Overseeing The Administrative State, Jill E. Fisch

Seattle University Law Review

In a series of recent cases, the Supreme Court has reduced the regulatory power of the Administrative State. Pending cases offer vehicles for the Court to go still further. Although the Court’s skepticism of administrative agencies may be rooted in Constitutional principles or political expediency, this Article explores another possible explanation—a shift in the nature of agencies and their regulatory role. As Pritchard and Thompson detail in their important book, A History of Securities Law in the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court was initially skeptical of agency power, jeopardizing Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)’s ambitious New Deal plan. The Court’s acceptance …