Social Welfare Law Commons^™

Untangling "Operation Common Sense": Reopening And Review Of Social Security Administration Disability Claims, Elizabeth S. Ferguson

Michigan Law Review

Part I of the Note outlines how the SSA processes a disability claim and illustrates the ambiguity in the language of the reopening regulations that has caused the split in the courts. Part II examines the four interpretations of the reopening regulations created by courts. Part II begins with the Secretary's interpretation and concludes that this interpretation is plainly inconsistent with the language of the regulations. Thus, courts need not defer, as they normally would, to an agency's interpretation of its own regulation. This Part next examines the alternative interpretations of these regulations advanced by various courts, and describes how …

Families In Peril, Nellie Pappas

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Families in Peril by Marian Wright Edelman

The Public Defender, Robert R. Kimball

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Public Defender by Lisa J. McIntyre

The Treatment Of Mandatory Tax Withholdings In Calculating Afdc Benefits: Fairness As A Relevant Inference In Ascertaining Congressional Intent, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note contends that the more appropriate construction of the statute is to view mandatory tax withholdings as nonincome and nonwork expense items. Part I traces the pre-OBRA legislative and administrative history and examines the judicial interpretations of 42 U.S.C. section 602(a)(7) "income" and section 602(a)(8) "earned income." It concludes that under the "availability" principle, tax withholdings have always been regarded as nonincome items distinct from work expenses. It contends that, notwithstanding contradictory language in the regulations implementing section 602(a)(8), the status of tax withholdings as nonincome items under section 602(a)(7) is controlling. Part II considers the legislative history and …

The Politics Of Welfare: The New York City Experience, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Politics of Welfare: The New York City Experience by Blanche Bernstein

Irs Denials Of Charitable Status: A Social Welfare Organization Problem, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that the courts and the Service should recognize social welfare organizations as charitable and, consequently, contributions to such organizations should be tax deductible. Part I describes the Service's position and sets forth the statutory arguments supporting it. Part II raises two objections to the Service's position: (1) the distinction between social welfare organizations and charitable organizations lacks an adequate statutory justification, and (2) this distinction produces unpredictable and arbitrary results. Part III proposes that all social welfare organizations be accorded charitable status under subsection 50l(c)(3). This proposal would eliminate the arbitrary results now reached by the Service, …

Poor People's Lawyers In Transition, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Poor People's Lawyers in Transition by Jack Katz

Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas Of The Individual In Public Services, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services by Michael Lipsky

Lawyers And The Pursuit Of Legal Rights, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Lawyers and the Pursuit of Legal Rights by Joel F. Handler, Ellen Jane Hollingsworth and Howard S. Erlanger

Doing Good And Getting Worse: The Dilemma Of Social Policy, Gerald N. Grob

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Doing Good: The Limits of Benevolence by Willard Gaylin, Ira Glasser, Steven Marcus, and David J. Rothman

Aid To Families With Unborn Dependent Children: May The States Withhold Benefits?, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This note will examine whether the duty to provide aid to unborn children should be imposed on all states participating in the AFDC program. It will first consider the argument that denying such benefits violates the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment, but the bulk of the note will be devoted to an interpretation of the relevant provisions of the Social Security Act. The statutory analysis requires several steps. First, it is necessary to examine and interpret the cases in which the Supreme Court has analyzed the legitimacy of state-imposed eligibility conditions. The focus will then shift to the …

The Role Of The Michigan Attorney General In Consumer And Environmental Protection, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

In an effort to clarify the role of the attorney general as public representative, this Note will examine the functioning of the office of the Michigan attorney general. After an analysis of the nature and extent of the attorney general's powers and of his current utilization of those powers, several proposals to increase his effectiveness will be discussed.

Law Of The Poor, Neil M. Levy

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Law of the Poor by Arthur B. La France, Milton R. Schroeder, Robert W. Bennett, and William E. Boyd

The Constitutional Minimum For The Termination Of Welfare Benefits: The Need For And Requirements Of A Prior Hearing, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Recently state welfare officials in New York terminated the benefits of a welfare recipient on the basis of an erroneous tip from her landlady that her husband visited her every night. She requested a posttermination hearing which was provided under New York law. During the four-month delay between the termination of benefits and the hearing, the recipient and her four small children were evicted from their apartment for nonpayment of rent. They were forced to move in with the woman's sister, who had nine children of her own, and who was also on relief. The recipient's children lost weight and …

Representation For The Poor In Federal Rulemaking, Arthur Earl Bonfield

Michigan Law Review

The ample personal economic resources and relatively well-financed organizations of middle and upper income Americans usually assure their particular interests adequate representation in federal administrative rulemaking. The norm is that middle and upper income individuals, or their personal or organizational representatives, directly or indirectly monitor all agency activities. These persons attempt to protect their interests through formal or informal participation in rulemaking affecting them. But federal rulemaking very frequently affects large numbers of individuals who lack the personal economic resources and organized associations of middle and upper income Americans. These economically underprivileged persons are usually unable to keep themselves adequately …

Hospital Emergency Service And The Open Door, Leonard S. Powers

Michigan Law Review

This Article will focus on the emerging duty of hospital emergency rooms to treat patients seeking their aid.

Slumlordism As A Tort--A Brief Response, Joseph L. Sax

Michigan Law Review

Professors Blum and Dunham begin their comment by accusing us of having a new idea. We plead guilty. Our purpose was to demonstrate that accepted principles in analogous areas of law would support a slumlordism action, not to argue that tort law as presently applied would do so. Indeed, our basic intent was to underscore the myopia of existing tort law perspectives.

Slumlordism As A Tort--A Dissenting View, Walter J. Blum, Allison Dunham

Michigan Law Review

The persistence of substandard housing in urban centers stands as a challenge to law. There is a pressing need to re-examine whether prevailing legal doctrines are adequate for dealing with the problem and to suggest new doctrines where the old are found wanting. To their great credit, Joseph L. Sax and Fred J. Hiestand in their article "Slumlordism as a Tort" face up to these tasks boldly and vigorously. They conclude that, under existing conditions, it is imprudent to rely on public authorities to enforce housing codes and it is unlikely that legislatures will place sufficient enforcement powers in private …

Legal Aid--Lay Control And Organizational Complexity Render Oeo Legal Service Program Unacceptable To New York Court--In Re Community Action For Legal Services, Inc., Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) and the New York City Council Against Poverty approved the organization and the OEO funding of three legal service corporations as part of a comprehensive program to provide legal assistance to New York City's poor. According to the plan, the first corporation, Community Action for Legal Services, Inc. (CALS), was to approve proposed plans for setting up and operating neighborhood law offices with OEO funds and then to supervise and coordinate the agencies that sought to put those plans into operation. These agencies, operating as delegates of CALS, and under subcontracts with it, were …

Slumlordism As A Tort, Joseph L. Sax, Fred J. Hiestand

Michigan Law Review

The war against poverty has been fought with rather more vigor than its initiators contemplated. Thus far, however, the major engagements have taken place in the streets of Watts and Chicago, which is not quite what they had in mind. Some, who think it odd that as we pass more laws we get more lawlessness, will perhaps content themselves by observing that the feeding hand is always bitten. Those less easily satisfied have begun to see the need for adopting some legal solutions as far reaching as the problems they are designed to abate; the following article is addressed to …

Equal Protection For The Illegitimate, Harry D. Krause

Michigan Law Review

In our time the general constitutional phrase promising equal protection has become specific law. It has been used to invalidate many state statutes which discriminated on the basis of race or other arbitrary criteria. Definite rules have been developed for this process of invalidation. These rules will be applied below to state and federal legislation that favors the legitimate child and discriminates against the illegitimate in matters of inheritance rights, rights of support, rights of name and custody, and social welfare. The question that will be asked is whether state and federal legislation may constitutionally discriminate between children on the …

Social Security Disability Determinations: The Burden Of Proof On Appeal, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

In 1956, the Social Security Act was amended to provide monthly disability insurance benefits to qualifying individuals under a uniform national program administered by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. Under this program, a claimant is entitled to disability benefits if he is unable to "engage in any substantial gainful activity by reason of any medically determinable physical or mental impairment which can be expected to be of long continued and indefinite duration." This definition and its accompanying statutory standards were purposely made conservative in order to minimize the problems inherent in initiating the program; it was contemplated that …

Legislation Requiring Child To Support Mother In State Asylum Is A Denial Of Equal Protection-Department Of Mental Hygiene V. Kirchner, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The California Department of Mental Hygiene brought suit under section 6650 of the state's Welfare and Institutions Code, a provision commonly known as a relative support statute, against the administratrix to recover 7,500 dollars from the intestate's estate. This amount represented the cost of food, housing, and treatment received by intestate's mother in a state mental hospital during the four years she had been confined there following a civil sanity hearing. Plaintiff was granted judgment on the pleadings. On appeal to the California Supreme Court, held, reversed. Since mental hospitals serve a proper public function, it is a denial …

Public Control Of Private Sectarian Institutions Receiving Public Funds, Richard B. Rogers

Michigan Law Review

This comment will examine the recent judicial and legislative developments which could result in federal controls limiting religious practices in private sectarian educational and welfare institutions.

Free Will In The Frontiers Of Federalism, John R. Brown

Michigan Law Review

In an assembly dedicated, as this one is, to frontiers in law and legal education in celebration of the centennial of this great Law School and forecasting what is to be expected in the next one hundred years, the idea of states' rights-of the federal-state relationship-has seemed almost ironic.

Constitutional Law- Equal Protection - Right To Counsel In Appeal By Indigent Person, Gertrude S. Rosenthal S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Following his conviction for assault with intent to commit rape, defendant gave notice of appeal. Declaring he was indigent but with meritorious grounds for prosecuting an appeal, he petitioned the appellate court for the appointment of counsel to present his case by brief and oral argument. No information concerning the defendant's age, education or experience was given by the petition, nor were specific grounds for review alleged. Appeal is a matter of right in criminal cases in the jurisdiction. Held, petition denied, two judges dissenting. No action will be taken until a transcript of the record is filed. The …

Constitutional Law - Post-Conviction Due Process - Right Of Indigent To Review Of Non-Constitutional Trial Errors, Robert C. Casad S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The purpose of this comment is to examine a new development. in post-conviction due process: Griffin v. Illinois. This case announces a new principle of constitutional right under the Fourteenth Amendment based on an almost indistinguishable combination of due process and equal protection elements.

Family Responsibilty Under The American Poor Laws: Ii, Daniel R. Mandelker

Michigan Law Review

No substantive statutory provision fulfills the purpose for which it was enacted unless fair and efficient procedures are provided for its enforcement. Under the Elizabethan family responsibility law, enforcement was confined to the parish justices of the peace, who at that time exercised both administrative and judicial functions. The blending of administrative and judicial functions no longer being the rule in American local government, practically all of the American family responsibility statutes provide for some judicial procedure by which the support duty may be enforced. The basic issue with which the courts have been concerned in applying these statutory remedies …

Family Responsibilty Under The American Poor Laws: I, Daniel R. Mandelker

Michigan Law Review

Ever since the enactment of the statute quoted above, first passed in 1597 as part of the original Elizabethan Poor Law, the concept of family responsibility has been linked with the public relief of the poor. Today, more than three-and-a-half centuries later, the basic, residual program of poor relief has survived in the statutes of every American jurisdiction, and practically all the states still have family responsibility provisions based on the English model. Although some jurisdictions have abandoned the family responsibility requirement, the tendency in recent years seems to be toward strengthening the law where it exists.

In spite of …

Descent And Distribution - Intestate Succession From An Adopted Child - Who Aim His "Brothers And Sisters", Jack G. Armstrong

Michigan Law Review

Decedent had never married and was predeceased by his natural and adopted parents. The California statute provided that in such a case his property would go to his brothers and sisters. Appellant, the natural daughter of decedent's adopted parents, contended that she was his sole heir under this statute, while respondent, decedent's natural brother, argued that the term ''brothers and sisters" meant blood relatives. The superior court applied the common meaning of the words brothers and sisters and held that appellant was not such a person. On appeal, held, reversed. Since the entire pattern of the California code indicates …