Disaster Law Commons^™

It's A Trap!: Responsible Enforcement Of Texas Disaster Evacuation Orders, William S. Gribble

Student Scholarship

We see emergencies within our lives and communities every day without much fanfare. However, when emergencies impact entire neighborhoods, communities, or regions, they become disasters. Depending on its severity, residents can be forced to flee in search of safety. Texas has had nearly five times the annual average of federal disaster declarations than that of any other state in the union. To manage emergencies and disasters, Texas law affords local governments numerous powers, including the authority to order evacuations. While many states have a single mechanism to enforce evacuation orders, Texas has both a civil (recovery of rescue expenses) and …

Bioethics And Covid-19: The Tension Of Quarantine And Civil Liberties, Jeffrey H. Dobken

NYMC Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 public health response is based on law and concepts developed to address an act of
bioterrorism. In the absence of a specific treatment or vaccine for an identified patient with COVID-19 this is fundamentally a statistical approach to preserve the general healthy population rather than address the needs of the individual patient.

Revising The Debt Limit For “Small Business Debtors”: The Legislative Half-Measure Of The Small Business Reorganization Act, Michael C. Blackmon

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Bankruptcy law changed drastically in 2019 with the passage of several bills. This Note will examine two of them. First, the Family Farmer Relief Act of 2019 raised the debt limit of the family farmer from $4,411,400 to $10,000,000. This enables more financially distressed family farmers to be eligible for Chapter 12 relief, a reorganizational tool designed for farmers. Second, the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 created Subchapter V – Small Business Debtor Reorganization in Chapter 11. This new Subchapter streamlined the reorganization process for small business debtors by removing roadblocks which often derail a reorganization of a small …

Legal Requirements For Equitable Design And Implementation Of Flood Buyout Programs In Rhode Island, Sarah Friedman, Read Porter

Sea Grant Law Fellow Publications

No abstract provided.

The Folly Of Credit As Pandemic Relief, Pamela Foohey, Dalié Jiménez, Christopher K. Odinet

Faculty Scholarship

Within weeks of the coronavirus pandemic appearing in the United States, the American economy came to a grinding halt. The unprecedented modern health crisis and the collapsing economy forced Congress to make a critical choice about how to help American families survive financially. Congress had two basic options. It could enact policies that provided direct and meaningful financial support to people, without the necessity of later repayment. Or it could pursue policies that temporarily relieved people from their financial obligations, but required that they eventually pay amounts subject to payment moratoria later.

In passing the CARES Act, Congress primarily chose …

The Debt Collection Pandemic, Pamela Foohey, Dalié Jiménez, Christopher K. Odinet

Faculty Scholarship

As of May 2020, the United States' reaction to the unique and alarming threat of COVID-19 has partially succeeded in slowing the virus’s spread. Saving people’s lives, however, came at a severe economic cost. Americans’ economic anxiety understandably spiked. In addition to worrying about meeting basic expenses, people’s anxieties about money necessarily included what might happen if they could not cover already outstanding debts. The nearly 70 million Americans with debts already in collection faced heightened anxiety about their inability to pay.

The coronavirus pandemic is set to metastasize into a debt collection pandemic. The federal government can and should …

Environmental Justice In Little Village: A Case For Reforming Chicago’S Zoning Law, Charles Isaacs

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Chicago’s Little Village community bears the heavy burden of environmental injustice and racism. The residents are mostly immigrants and people of color who live with low levels of income, limited access to healthcare, and disproportionate levels of dangerous air pollution. Before its retirement, Little Village’s Crawford coal-burning power plant was the lead source of air pollution, contributing to 41 deaths, 550 emergency room visits, and 2,800 asthma attacks per year. After the plant’s retirement, community members wanted a say on the future use of the lot, only to be closed out when a corporation, Hilco Redevelopment Partners, bought the lot …

Law In The Time Of Covid-19, Katharina Pistor

Faculty Books

The COVID-19 crisis has ended and upended lives around the globe. In addition to killing over 160,000 people, more than 35,000 in the United States alone, its secondary effects have been as devastating. These secondary effects pose fundamental challenges to the rules that govern our social, political, and economic lives. These rules are the domain of lawyers. Law in the Time of COVID-19 is the product of a joint effort by members of the faculty of Columbia Law School and several law professors from other schools.

This volume offers guidance for thinking about some the most pressing legal issues the …

Narrow, Narrower, Narrowest: Appropriate Force Majeure Specificity, Tayzlie T. Haack, Max A. Esplin

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

Imagine you are the owner of a small construction company and

are contracted to build a large office building. As is customary, you

signed a contract agreeing to complete the building by a specific

deadline for a set amount of money. Included is a brief force majeure

clause, which allows you to be relieved of the contract in the case of

“unforeseeable circumstances” that might prevent completion of the

project. During construction, heavy tariffs affect your main suppliers,

exponentially increasing the projected cost of completing the

project. Your company cannot afford the supplies necessary to complete

the building, and you …

Are We In Good Hands? A Comparative Analysis Of Compensation Schemes Concerning Catastrophes And Their Administrative Structure, Yi Ming Zeng

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

The note critiques the administrative structure of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund (VCF), highlighting its limitations in providing equitable and transparent compensation. It proposes integrating elements from Germany's and Japan's administrative systems to address these shortcomings and improve future disaster compensation schemes in the U.S.

Cares Act Gimmicks: How Not To Give People Money During A Pandemic And What To Do Instead, Pamela Foohey, Dalié Jiménez, Christopher K. Odinet

Faculty Scholarship

The coronavirus pandemic upturned Americans’ lives. The profound financial effects caused by even a few weeks of the coronavirus’ upheaval spurred Congress to pass the CARES Act, which purported to provide economic relief to individuals and businesses. For individuals, the CARES Act includes five provisions that were effectively designed to provide people money. Chief among those provisions are a direct payment in the form of a tax rebate and enhanced employment benefits.

Ultimately, this financial support will prove to be shockingly minimal. The direct payments represent a fraction of the average American households’ monthly budget. The unemployment benefits, while providing …

Catastrophic Risk: Waking Up To The Reality Of A Pandemic?, W. Kip Viscusi, Jamison Pike, Jason F. Shogren, David Aadland, David Finnoff, Alexandre Skiba, Peter Daszak

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Will a major shock awaken the US citizens to the threat of catastrophic pandemic risk? Using a natural experiment administered both before and after the 2014 West African Ebola Outbreak, our evidence suggests “no.” Our results show that prior to the Ebola scare, the US citizens were relatively complacent and placed a low relative priority on public spending to prepare for a pandemic disease outbreak relative to an environmental disaster risk (e.g., Fukushima) or a terrorist attack (e.g., 9/11). After the Ebola scare, the average citizen did not over-react to the risk. This flat reaction was unexpected given the well-known …

Ethical Imperatives Critical To Effective Disease Control In The Coronavirus Pandemic: Recognition Of Global Health Interdependence As A Driver Of Health And Social Equity, George A. Gellert Md, Mph, Mpa

Journal of Health Ethics

Ethical imperatives critical to effective disease control in the coronavirus pandemic: Recognition of global health interdependence as a driver of health and social equity

George A. Gellert MD, MPH, MPA

ABSTRACT

Decades into the era of emerging infectious diseases, the 2019-2020 coronavirus pandemic has caught the world, and the United States in particular, poorly prepared to engage effective public health disease prevention and control measures. In part, this reflects poor public health planning, response, logistical preparation and pandemic readiness, and complacency by governments and disease control agencies. In terms of future responses to emerging infection pandemics, these deficiencies can be …

In Memory Of Professor James E. Bond, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

Janet Ainsworth, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law: In Memory of Professor James E. Bond.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

On Environmental Law, Climate Change, And National Security Law, Mark P. Nevitt

Faculty Articles

This Article offers a new way to think about climate change. Two new climate change assessments—the 2018 Fourth National Climate Assessment (“NCA”) and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Climate Change— prominently highlight climate change’s multifaceted national security risks. Indeed, not only is climate change an environmental problem, it also accelerates existing national security threats, acting as both a “threat accelerant” and “catalyst for conflict.” Further, climate change increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events while threatening nations’ territorial integrity and sovereignty through rising sea levels. It causes both internal displacement within nations …

Damn It! A Conversation On Being Black, Female, And Marginalized During The Covid-19 Pandemic: Is The World Listening? A Conversation Between Black Female Law Professors, Patricia A. Broussard

Journal Publications

We are African American women with a combined forty-four years in academia. We are professors of law and have seen firsthand how COVID-19 has ravaged African Americans across this country. As we conversed with one another in the Spring of 2020 about what we were witnessing, we began to look through the spectrum of the law and discrimination, and how this novel Coronavirus is laying bare the inequities and inequalities that have been evident for hundreds of years in the Black community. We felt compelled to put pen to paper and document our conversations in an attempt to give a …

Can Natural Disasters Have A Rally ’Round The Flag Effect? The Political Consequences Of Nepal’S 2015 Earthquake, Margaret Boittin, Cecilia Hyunjung Mo, Stephen Utych

All Papers

Natural disasters have been shown to influence support for incumbent governments and political systems in a variety of circumstances. We argue that natural disasters can exhibit a “Rally ’Round the Flag” effect, boosting support for incumbent governments, similar to that observed in international conflict. Leveraging an in-process data collection effort in Nepal that was interrupted by a major earthquake in April 2015, we find evidence that this disaster induced a rally effect. Post-earthquake, support for the political system in Nepal increased. We find this effect implementing both a propensity score matching design and a pre-post test in which the same …

In Times Of Chaos: Creating Blueprints For Law School Responses To Natural Disasters, Jeffrey R. Baker, Christine E. Cerniglia, Davida Finger, Luz E. Herrera, Jonel Newman

Faculty Scholarship

A recent onslaught of domestic natural disasters created acute, critical needs for legal services for people displaced and harmed by storms and fires. In 2017, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria and Michael struck much of Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico, displacing millions from their homes. Wildfires burned throughout California and tested the capacity of pro bono and legal aid systems across the state. In 2018, Hurricane Florence flooded North Carolina, and Hurricane Michael devastated the Florida Panhandle. California again suffered wildfires, the largest and most devastating in recorded history. Natural disasters are both more common and more destructive, the “new abnormal.” …

Covid-19 Business Interruption Insurance Losses: The Cases For And Against Coverage, Christopher French

Faculty Scholarship

The financial consequences of the government-ordered shutdowns of businesses across America to mitigate the COVID-19 health crisis are enormous. Estimates indicate that small businesses have lost $255 to $431 billion per month and more than 44 million workers have been laid off. When businesses have requested reimbursement of their business interruption losses from their insurers under business interruption policies, their insurers have denied the claims. The insurance industry also has announced that business interruption policies do not cover pandemic losses, so they intend to fight COVID-19 claims “tooth and nail.” More than 450 lawsuits throughout the country already have been …