Social Welfare Law Commons^™

Case No. 23 - Hypertensive Brain Bleed In A 10 Year Old With Undiagnosed Kidney Disease, New York Law School

Anonymous Closed Medical Liability Cases

Anonymous Closed Medical Liability Case - Hypertensive Brain Bleed in a 10 year old with Undiagnosed Kidney Disease

How The E-Government Can Save Money By Building Bridges Across The Digital Divide, Alison Rogers

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

As government agencies and federal aid recipients begin to build a presence online, they must recognize that language accessibility is morally required, fiscally responsible, and compulsory under federal civil rights law. This Note explores statutes, federal policies, and case law that purport to protect the rights of limited English proficient (“LEP”) individuals in cyberspace. The Note suggests reforms, policies, and programs that should be adopted by federal aid recipients to ensure that LEP individuals have meaningful access to online services.

Detoxing The Child Welfare System, Allison E. Korn

Faculty Scholarship

This Article considers the varying reasons why drug policies informing child welfare interventions are not evolving as part of the drug policy reform movement, which has successfully advocated for initiatives that decrease mass incarceration, end mandatory minimums, and decriminalize or legalize marijuana use and possession. Many existing child welfare laws and policies that address parental drug use rely on the premise that prenatal exposure to a controlled substance causes inevitable harm to a child. Furthermore, they presume that any amount of drug use by a parent places a child in imminent danger, or is indicative of future risk of harm. …

On The Expansion Of “Health” And “Welfare” Under Medicaid, Laura Hermer

Faculty Scholarship

Medicaid was intended from its inception to provide financial access to health care for certain categories of impoverished Americans. While rooted in historical welfare programs, it was meant to afford the "deserving" poor access to the same sort of health care that other, wealthier Americans received. Yet despite this seemingly innocuous and laudable purpose, it has become a front in the political and social battles waged over the last several decades on the issues of welfare and the safety net. The latest battleground pits competing visions of Medicaid. One vision seeks to transform Medicaid from a health care program into …

Will Work For Free: The Legality Of Unpaid Internships, Nicole M. Klinger

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

This Note addresses the current ambiguity in the law regarding if unpaid interns are employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The Note explores relevant case law throughout the circuit courts, but primarily focuses on the Second Circuit’s recent decision in Glatt v. Fox Searchlight Pictures. It argues that the primary benefits test created by the Second Circuit in Glatt does not adequately protect unpaid interns nor does it inform employers of the standards they need to meet in order to adopt legal unpaid internship programs. Instead, courts should adopt a clearer, more rigid test that finds an intern not …

The Unintended Pregnancy Crisis: A No-Fault Fix, Eric Lindenfeld

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

There is an ongoing and concerning public health problem in the United States relating to unintended pregnancies. Despite the fact that women consistently express dissatisfaction with existing contraception methods, the availability of cutting edge technologies remains stagnant. This paper argues that the threat of liability in the form on product liability lawsuits dissuades contraceptive manufacturers from innovating. This paper proposes a no-fault fix to the problem modeled around the National Childhood Vaccine Act of 1986.

Allowing States To Help Workers Safe For Retirement: Department Of Labor's Proposed Rulemaking That Provides A Safe Harbor For State Savings Programs Under Erisa, William A. Nelson

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

There is a “retirement crisis” in America. Contributing to

this crisis is the fact that millions of Americans do not have

access to a retirement savings plan through their employers.

States, concerned with the economic stability of their citizens,

have created laws that require private sector employers to

implement state-administered payroll deduction IRA programs

in their workplaces. Even though many states are currently

debating whether to adopt state payroll deduction programs,

this Article will focus on Oregon, Illinois, and California, which

have enacted laws along those lines.

One obstruction to wider adoption of such state measures

has been uncertainty about …

Essay: Understanding Employment Discrimination Litigation In China Through The Notion Of "Rights Apathy", Sheera Chan, Mimi Zou

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

The psycho-legal concept of “rights apathy” is developed in

this Essay as an underlying factor of the very low rate of

incidence of workplace discrimination lawsuits filed in China,

despite an increasingly elaborate legal framework “on paper”

and workers’ rising awareness of their legal rights under

anti-discrimination laws. “Rights apathy” is underpinned by the

notions of “frustration” and “learned helplessness,” depicting the

indifference of workers in exercising their legal rights before a

tribunal or court. A number of institutional problems, namely

defects in existing anti-discrimination provisions, judicial

practices, and contradictions in other laws, policies, and

practices, can contribute to the …

Comment: Transgender Employment Discrimination Equality In Wisconsin: The Demise Of A Former Lgbtiq+ Rights Trailblazer, Alexandra A. Klimko

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

Wisconsin, once known as “The Gay Rights State” and a

pioneer of the LGBTIQ+ civil rights movement, has

disappointingly failed to create transgender-inclusive

employment discrimination legislation, much like the majority of

American states. As a result, Wisconsin transgender employees

face shocking workplace discrimination with saddening

repercussions felt by transgender individuals who call Wisconsin

home. This Comment identifies the federal, state, and city

approaches that have extended equal employment

discrimination legal protections to transgender workers in the

United States. Further, this Comment urges the Wisconsin

legislature to incorporate “gender identity or expression” to

Wisconsin’s Fair Employment Act as a non-discrimination

category, …

Single Payer And The Rising Cost Of Health Care, Brianna Paolicelli

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The New York Health Act proposes a single-payer healthcare system aimed at providing universal coverage by eliminating private insurers and reducing administrative costs. The Act, persistently advocated by Assemblyman Richard Gottfried since 1992, passed the State Assembly in 2015 but faces opposition, particularly from the insurance industry and the Republican Senate. Despite challenges, the Act is supported by economic research indicating significant cost savings and improved efficiency, drawing on international successes like Canada and Taiwan. It addresses historical and contemporary healthcare issues, offering a comprehensive solution to the state's healthcare needs.

Decriminalizing Violence: A Critique Of Restorative Justice And Proposal For Diversionary Mediation, M. Eve Hanan

All Faculty Scholarship

The movement to reduce over-prosecution and mass incarceration has focused almost exclusively on non-violent offenders despite data showing that over half of all prisoners incarcerated within the United States are sentenced for crimes of violence. As a consequence of the focus on nonviolent offenses, the majority of current and future defendants will not benefit from initiatives offering alternatives to criminal prosecution and incarceration.

A discussion of alternatives to the criminal justice system in cases of violent crime must begin by acknowledging that violent crime is not monolithic. Many incidents meet the statutory elements of a violent crime, that is, the …

Irresponsibly Taxing Irresponsibility: The Individual Tax Penalty Under The Affordable Care Act, Francine J. Lipman, James Owens

Scholarly Works

In recent decades, Congress has used the federal income tax system increasingly to administer and deliver social benefits. This transition is consistent with the evolution of the American welfare system into workfare over the last several decades. As more and more social welfare benefits are conditioned upon work, family composition, and means-tested by income levels, the income tax system where this data is already systematically aggregated, authenticated, and processed has become the go-to administrative agency.

Nevertheless, as the National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson has noted there are “substantial differences between benefits agencies and enforcement agencies in terms of culture, mindset, …

Food Stamps, Unjust Enrichment And Minimum Wage, Candace Kovacic-Fleischer

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

A number of large retail chains with monopsony power, such as Walmart, pay their low level employees so little that these employees are eligible for food stamps and other governmental benefits. In addition to paying low wages, these chains often have hourly restrictions so that their employees are not eligible for overtime pay. At times the chains violate the wage and hour provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by making hourly employees work “off the clock,” a practice known as wage theft.

One of the reasons these low wage retailers can pay so little is because their employees …

The Collective Fiduciary, Lauren R. Roth

Scholarly Works

Can fiduciaries be made to serve public goals? The movement under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) towards universal access to health insurance requires us to focus on the fiduciary relationships between large organizations providing access to healthcare and the populations they serve. These relationships have become a collective undertaking instead of a direct, personal relationship.

In this Article, I introduce the concept of the collective fiduciary in response to the shift towards uniform, national goals in the realm of health insurance and healthcare. Only through a collective approach can we hold fiduciaries accountable for the welfare of …

Unequal Access To Justice: Solla V. Berlin And The Unprincipled Evisceration Of New York’S Eaja, Armen H. Merjian

Pace Law Review

Solla is noteworthy not merely in light of the baleful effects of its ruling, but because of its reasoning: it is categorically wrong. The decision wholly elides a cornerstone and settled principle of New York welfare law, namely, that in the administration of public assistance, the municipalities act as the agents of the State, while blatantly violating the most fundamental of agency principles, namely, that a principal is vicariously liable for the actions of its agent acting within the scope of its authority. Indeed, this principal/agent relationship is established both by statute and by decades of uniform state and federal …

Self-Sufficiency: The Approach Welfare Reform Should Take In Order To Remedy The Shortcomings Of Past Efforts, Ashley Carroll

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

This comment will explain the evolution of welfare reform, present some proposals that others have suggested in order to remedy the problems the current system has, and suggest a way to best serve those of a lower socio-economic status. Part II explains the background on welfare reform and why the reform that occurred during the Clinton administration was so revolutionary. It will explain how the progress in the Clinton administration impacted the effectiveness of welfare reform. Part III details how the current welfare programs in place impact the United States, and how the changes by the Obama administration contrast with …

Reflections On Current Attempts To Revise International Legal Structures: The North-South Dialogue-Clash Of Values And Concepts, Contradictions And Compromises, Pedro Roffe

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Between A Bed And A Hard Place: How Washington Can Keep Psychiatric Patients In Treatment And Off The Streets, Spencer Babbitt

Seattle University Law Review

On February 27, 2013, ten psychiatric patients were being involuntarily detained in hospital emergency departments located in Pierce County under Washington State’s Involuntary Treatment Act (ITA). Despite the name of the law that authorized their detainment, these individuals were not receiving any psychiatric treatment during their confinement. Nor were they there as the result of a criminal conviction. The only thing these ten detainees were guilty of was being mentally ill. Under what is now considered to have been a misinterpretation of the ITA, counties across Washington had for years been confining mentally ill patients in hospitals not certified to …

Perspectives - William Morrish, Professor Of Urban Ecologies At Parsons The New School For Design, James Hagy

Rooftops Project

How can arts organizations with an aspiration to build their own facilities connect project design both with the broader community and with financial sustainability? The Rooftops Project’s Zulaihat Nauzo and Professor James Hagy talk with William Morrish, Professor of Urban Ecologies at Parsons The New School for Design.

On The "Poverty Of Responsibility": A Study Of The History Of Child Protection Law And Jurisprudence In Nova Scotia, Ilana Luther

PhD Dissertations

This thesis presents a history of child protection law and jurisprudence in Nova Scotia. The thesis begins by examining the development of the first child protection statute in Canada, the Nova Scotia Prevention and Punishment of Wrongs to Children Act in 1882. The Act was developed amidst a climate of reform in late-19th century Halifax, at the urging of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The Act, along with a number of other pieces of “domestic relations” legislation at the time, was focused on protecting children in poverty. With the passing of the Act, the legislature not …

Legal Problems Involved In The Administration Of The A.D.C. Program In Ohio, C. David Hensal

Akron Law Review

The code provisions and their supplemental rules and regulations do not answer the question of whether an individual has a "right" to welfare benefits. There has been little litigation over the point; consequently, there has been little judicial analysis of the relative rights and duties of the parties involved. Too much is left to the inexpert good intentions of the agency administrator. However, some reasonably well-defined problems have begun to emerge. Certain justiciable issues are being delineated with more and more clarity. The purpose of this Comment is to examine some of these problem areas and to offer some analysis …

Symposium: Legal Issues And Urbanization In Developing Countries-Foreward, Georgia Journal Of International And Comparative Law

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Right Of The Physically And Mentally Handicapped: Amendments Necessary To Guarantee Protection Through The Civil Rights Act Of 1964, Patrick T. Ryan

Akron Law Review

SINGLE STROKES of the government's pen can seldom alone accomplish social goals. To insure vitality, legislation requires review, revision and amendment. Though worthy of praise for initial and continuing contributions towards social betterment, the Civil Rights Act of 19641 falls into this classification. Its scope is too narrow because it fails to include a significant group of persons sorely in need of its protection. This legislation needs the depth evoked by its title rather than the limitations of its present language. Amendment is required to protect the rights of the physically and mentally handicapped.

Guardianship Of Adults With Mental Retardation: Towards A Presumption Of Competence, Amie L. Bruggeman

Akron Law Review

Statutes should be revised so that people with varying levels of mental retardation are allowed to live as independently as they are able. To achieve this goal, legislators and members of the legal community must become aware of the nature of mental retardation, consider the individual personhood of one having this condition, and devise a legal framework with enough flexibility to accommodate both the individual and society. Ohio's guardianship laws and their relationship to adults with mental retardation require analysis. Although progress has been made in Ohio towards the goal of facilitating maximum enjoyment of independence, the present guardianship laws …

Ohio's Need To Enact A Living Will Statute And Recognize The Terminally Ill Patient's Right To Death With Dignity, Frank G. Mazgaj

Akron Law Review

This article discusses the use of "living wills" as a method for permitting a terminally ill patient to forego or terminate life-sustaining treatment. First, the constitutional issues, description, and medical and legal considerations of "living wills" will be explored. Secondly, alternative methods to forego or terminate life-sustaining treatment will be discussed. Finally, this article will analyze Ohio's proposed "living will" statute, and offer corresponding recommendations.

Retiree Welfare Benefits: Erisa, Lmra And The Federal Common Law, Frances Figetakis

Akron Law Review

Part I of this comment will examine the applicable statutory law in this area. Part II will examine the developing body of federal case law. Part III will address the underlying policy concerns in conjunction with already established precedent to provide insight into what the law in this area should be.

Homelessness: A Post-Industrial Society Faces A Legislative Dilemma, Robert W. Collin, Daniel J. Barry

Akron Law Review

In American social welfare history, the intent with which one became poor has determined their eligibility for aid from the state. This intent has never been clearly labeled as such. Rather, it has taken the form of equating intentional poverty with those "voluntarily in need," not truly needy or "willfully unemployed." There has not been a distinction between the intention with which one seeks aid, and the intention with which one becomes poor. Recently, such a distinction is emerging in new homelessness legislation. However, the new poverty legislation which grapples with intent will be doing so in a post-industrial society. …

Drug-Testing: Some Fundamental Conceptual And Juristic Problems, Bankole Thompson

Akron Law Review

Discussions about the use or abuse of drugs or of drug-testing are usually charged with a high degree of emotiveness and subjectivity. By the same token, additionally, writings on the subject of drug testing often pose peculiar problems of analysis and objectivity.

The purpose of this article is to explore and analyze some fundamental conceptual legal problems germane to a consideration of the legality of drug-testing in a democratic society which practices the rule of law and which places a high premium, in its normative scheme, on the principle of individual or personal liberty. The justification for this exercise lies …

Five Hundred Years Of English Poor Laws, 1349-1834: Regulating The Working And Nonworking Poor, William P. Quigley

Akron Law Review

This article will review how the working and the nonworking poor were regulated by 500 years of English poor laws. It will conclude with ideas about the principles which have since evolved to regulate the working and nonworking poor.

The Dangerous Right To Food Choice, Samuel R. Wiseman

Seattle University Law Review

Scholars, advocates, and interest groups have grown increasingly concerned with the ways in which government regulations—from agricultural subsidies to food safety regulations to licensing restrictions on food trucks—affect access to local food. One argument emerging from the interest in recent years is that choosing what foods to eat, what I have previously called “liberty of palate,” is a fundamental right. The attraction is obvious: infringements of fundamental rights trigger strict scrutiny, which few statutes survive. As argued elsewhere, the doctrinal case for the existence of such a right is very weak. This Essay does not revisit those arguments, but instead …