College of Law

Covid-19 is officially a pandemic. It is a novel infection with serious clinical manifestations, including death, and it has reached at least 124 countries and territories. Although the ultimate course and impact of Covid-19 are uncertain, it is not merely possible but likely that the disease will produce enough severe illness to overwhelm health care infrastructure. Emerging viral pandemics “can place extraordinary and sustained demands on public health and health systems and on providers of essential community services.” Such demands will create the need to ration medical equipment and interventions. Rationing is already here. In the United States, perhaps the earliest example was the near-immediate recognition that there were not enough high-filtration N-95 masks for health care workers, prompting contingency guidance on how to reuse masks designed for single use. Physicians in Italy have proposed directing crucial resources such as intensive care beds and ventilators to patients who can benefit most from treatment. Daegu, South Korea — home to most of that country’s Covid-19 cases — faced a hospital bed shortage, with some patients dying at home while awaiting admission. In the United Kingdom, protective gear requirements for health workers have been downgraded, causing condemnation among providers. The rapidly growing imbalance between supply and demand for medical resources in many countries presents an inherently normative question: How can medical resources be allocated fairly during a Covid-19 pandemic?

Although the individualism–collectivism dimension is usually examined in a U.S. versus Asian context, there is variation within the United States. The authors created an eight-item index ranking states in terms of collectivist versus individualist tendencies. As predicted, collectivist tendencies were strongest in the Deep South, and individualist tendencies were strongest in the Mountain West and Great Plains. In Part 2, convergent validity for the index was obtained by showing that state collectivism scores predicted variation in individual attitudes, as measured by a national survey. In Part 3, the index was used to explore the relationship between individualism–collectivism and a variety of demographic, economic, cultural, and health-related variables. The index may be used to complement traditional measures of collectivism and individualism and may be of use to scholars seeking a construct to account for unique U.S. regional variation.

To the woman, God said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in child bearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” Genesis 3:16 There is now a well-established body of literature documenting the pervasive inadequate treatment of pain in this country. There have also been allegations, and some data, supporting the notion that women are more likely than men to be undertreated or inappropriately diagnosed and treated for their pain. One particularly troublesome study indicated that women are more likely to be given sedatives for their pain and men to be given pain medication. Speculation as to why this difference might exist has included the following: Women complain more than men; women are not accurate reporters of their pain; men are more stoic so that when they do complain of pain, “it's real”; and women are better able to tolerate pain or have better coping skills than men.

Journal Article The Law of Obligations, Roman Foundations of the Civilian Tradition Get access The Law of Obligations, Roman Foundations of the Civilian Tradition. By Zimmermann Reinhard. Capetown: Jura & Co., 1990. Pp. lxiv, 1241. James Gordley James Gordley *Professor of Law, School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Journal of Comparative Law, Volume 40, Issue 4, Autumn 1992, Pages 1002–1011, https://doi.org/10.2307/840806 Published: 01 October 1992

We estimate the effects on employment and wages of wrongful-discharge protections adopted by U.S. state courts during the last three decades. We find robust evidence that one wrongful-discharge doctrine, the implied-contract exception, reduced state employment rates by 0.8% to 1.7%. The initial impact is largest for female and less-educated workers (those who change jobs frequently), while the longer-term effect is greater for older and more-educated workers (those most likely to litigate). By contrast, we find no robust employment or wage effects of two other widely recognized wrongful-discharge laws: the public-policy and goodfaith exceptions.

This article uses citations to the published opinions of judges on the federal courts of appeals who had six or more years tenure at the end of 1995 to estimate empirically the influence of individual judges. We rank judges on the basis of both total influence (citations adjusted for judicial tenure and other variables) and average influence (citations per published opinion). We also analyze the effects of factors that may be relevant to explaining differences in the influence of individual judges. These factors include both characteristics of the judges (for example, quality of law school, law school performance, sex, race, prior experience, political affiliation) and characteristics of the circuit in which they sit (such as the mix of cases in the circuit). In an appendix, we use citations to the published opinions in each circuit rather than to individual judges to measure the influence of circuits rather than individual judges. Copyright 1998 by the University of Chicago.

RATIONALE: Communication with family of critically ill patients is often poor and associated with family distress. OBJECTIVES: To determine if an intensive care unit (ICU) communication facilitator reduces family distress and intensity of end-of-life care. METHODS: We conducted a randomized trial at two hospitals. Eligible patients had a predicted mortality greater than or equal to 30% and a surrogate decision maker. Facilitators supported communication between clinicians and families, adapted communication to family needs, and mediated conflict. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Outcomes included depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among family 3 and 6 months after ICU and resource use. We identified 488 eligible patients and randomized 168. Of 352 eligible family members, 268 participated (76%). Family follow-up at 3 and 6 months ranged from 42 to 47%. The intervention was associated with decreased depressive symptoms at 6 months (P = 0.017), but there were no significant differences in psychological symptoms at 3 months or anxiety or PTSD at 6 months. The intervention was not associated with ICU mortality (25% control vs. 21% intervention; P = 0.615) but decreased ICU costs among all patients (per patient: $75,850 control, $51,060 intervention; P = 0.042) and particularly among decedents ($98,220 control, $22,690 intervention; P = 0.028). Among decedents, the intervention reduced ICU and hospital length of stay (28.5 vs. 7.7 d and 31.8 vs. 8.0 d, respectively; P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Communication facilitators may be associated with decreased family depressive symptoms at 6 months, but we found no significant difference at 3 months or in anxiety or PTSD. The intervention reduced costs and length of stay, especially among decedents. This is the first study to find a reduction in intensity of end-of-life care with similar or improved family distress. Clinical trial registered with www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT 00720200).

Online education is no longer a trend. Rather, it is mainstream. In the fall of 2012, 69% of chief academic leaders indicated online learning was critical to their longterm strategy and of the 20.6 million students enrolled in higher education, 6.7 million were enrolled in an online course (Allen &amp; Seaman, 2013; United States Department of Education, 2013). As developments in educational technology continue to advance, the ways in which we deliver and receive knowledge in both the traditional and online classrooms will further evolve. It is necessary to investigate and understand the progression and advancements in educational technology and the variety of methods used to deliver knowledge to improve the quality of education we provide today and motivate, inspire, and educate the students of the 21st century. This paper explores the evolution of distance education beginning with correspondence and the use of parcel post, to radio, then to television, and finally to online education.

The objectives of this study were to describe ways in which doctors make suboptimal diagnostic and treatment decisions, and to discuss possible means of alleviating those biases, using a review of past studies from the psychological and medical decision-making literatures. A number of biases can affect the ways in which doctors gather and use evidence in making diagnoses. Biases also exist in how doctors make treatment decisions once a definitive diagnosis has been made. These biases are not peculiar to the medical domain but, rather, are manifestations of suboptimal reasoning to which people are susceptible in general. None the less, they can have potentially grave consequences in medical settings, such as erroneous diagnosis or patient mismanagement. No surefire methods exist for eliminating biases in medical decision making, but there is some evidence that the adoption of an evidence-based medicine approach or the incorporation of formal decision analytic tools can improve the quality of doctors' reasoning. Doctors' reasoning is vulnerable to a number of biases that can lead to errors in diagnosis and treatment, but there are positive signs that means for alleviating some of these biases are available.

John C. Coffee, Jr., Market Failure and the Economic Case for a Mandatory Disclosure System, Virginia Law Review, Vol. 70, No. 4, Fifty Years of Federal Securities Regulation: Symposium on Contemporary Problems in Securities Regulation (May, 1984), pp. 717-753

The term “good governance” is unsettled in its meaning. Through the 1980s and 1990s, donor countries and institutions trended to make aid conditional upon reforms in the recipient country, which was found largely ineffective in encouraging real policy changes. More recently, donors, such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the United States, are increasingly insisting upon performance and good governance as a prerequisite for aid, a practice called “selectivity.” This is a means of requiring a recipient state to demonstrate the seriousness of its commitment to economic and social reforms. There are no objective standards for determining good governance: some aspects include political stability, the rule of law, control of corruption, and accountability. High levels of poverty and weak governance are linked, making selectivity difficult to implement. For reforms to succeed, domestic support, ownership, and commitment are crucial, as are the recipient's cultural context and history.

This book advances our understanding of law and empire in the early modern world. It exposes new dimensions of legal pluralism in the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Ottoman empires. In-depth analyses probe such topics as the shifting legal privileges of corporations, the intertwining of religious and legal thought, and the effects of clashing legal authorities on sovereignty and subjecthood. Case studies show how a variety of individuals engage with the law and shape the contours of imperial rule. The book reaches from Peru to New Zealand to Europe to capture the varieties and continuities of legal pluralism and to probe the analytic power of the concept of legal pluralism in the comparative study of empires. For legal scholars, social scientists, and historians, the book maps new approaches to the study of empires and the global history of law.

In May 2005, the World Health Organization adopted the new International Health Regulations (IHR), which constitute one of the most radical and far-reaching changes to international law on public health since the beginning of international health cooperation in the mid-nineteenth century. This article comprehensively analyses the new IHR by examining the history of international law on infectious disease control, the IHR revision process, the substantive changes contained in the new IHR and concerns regarding the future of the new IHR. The article demonstrates why the new IHR constitute a seminal event in the relationship between international law and public health and send messages about how human societies should govern their vulnerabilities to serious, acute disease events in the twenty-first century.

This Article explores a problem that may occur in appellate cases in which two or more issues present themselves.In these problematic cases, the court may reach a decision as to outcome in one of two ways, either by summing the votes of individual judges as to the outcome of the case overall, or by summing the votes of individual judges on each of the issues and then combining the results.The two methods of decisionmaking can lead to different results.This "doctrinal paradox" is unfortunate because cases are supposed to be decided on their merits rather than by an unconsidered choice of voting protocoL Professors Kornhauser and Sager argue that neither of the decisional methods is always superior.Rather, appellate courts, as "collegial enterprises, " should directly confront the doctrinal paradox when it arises and deliberately determine the method of case decision that will control Professors Kornhauser and Sager suggest that the best method for choosing between decisional methods is a "metavote," with members of a court voting for a particular method after discussing such factors as whether the outcome or rationales for it are more important, whether the issues to be decided are independent, the seriousness of the consequences of the outcome, hierarchical management concerns, and internal management considerations.

This is an important book. In the latter nineteenth century, diverse and influential elements in white America combined forces to settle the 'Indian question' through assimilation...The results were the essentially treaty-breaking Dawes Act of 1887, related legislation, and dubious court decisions. Schoolteachers and missionaries were dispatched to the reservations en masse. Eventual 'citizenship' without functional rights was given Native Americans; the Indians lost two-thirds of reservation land as it had existed before the assimilationist campaign...With insight and skill that go well beyond craft, Hoxie has admirably defined issues and motives, placed economic/political/social interaction into cogent perspective, brought numerous Anglo and Indian individuals and organizations to life, and set forth important lessons.-Choice. This significant study of Indian-white relations during a complex time in national politics deserves close attention.-American Indian Quarterly. Important and intellectually challenging ...This volume goes far to fill a large gap in the history of United States Indian policy.-Journal of American History. Frederick E.Hoxie is director of the D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian at the Newberry Library. He coedited (with Joan Mark) E. Jane Gay's With the Nez Perces: Alice Fletcher in the Field, 1889-92 (Nebraska 1981).

Over the past several decades, the number of lawyers in large cities has doubled, women have entered the bar at an unprecedented rate, and the scale of firms has greatly expanded. This immense growth has transformed the nature and social structure of the legal profession. In the most comprehensive analysis of the urban bar to date, Urban Lawyers presents a compelling portrait of how these changes continue to shape the field of law today. Drawing on extensive interviews with Chicago lawyers, the authors demonstrate how developments in the profession have affected virtually every aspect of the work and careers of urban lawyers - their relationships with clients, job tenure and satisfaction, income, social and political values, networks of professional connections, and patterns of participation in the broader community. Yet despite the dramatic changes, much remains the same. Stratification of income and power based on gender, race, and religious background, for instance, still maintains inequality within the bar. The authors of Urban Lawyers conclude that organizational priorities will likely determine the future direction of the legal profession. And with this landmark study as their guide, readers will be able to make their own informed predictions.

Since its inception, the United Nations has adopted two General Assembly resolutions dealing with the rights of victims: the 1985 Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power and the 2006 Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law. The focus of the former was on victims of domestic crimes, while that of the latter is on victims of international crimes; more particularly, gross violations of international human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law. The 2006 Principles are, for all practical purposes, an international bill of rights of victims. Their adoption has been hard-fought, but their implementation both at the national and international levels is sure to still face many obstacles. Parallel to this historic development have been decisions by the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, as well as provisions in the statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), giving standing to victims in ICC proceedings, but also certain rights of compensation. These parallel developments, as well as others within domestic legal systems, evidence a wide movement towards the recognition of the rights of victims of crime, whether domestic or international, or gross violations of human rights. This article re-traces the historic origin of victims' rights in domestic and international legal systems, focusing particularly on the adoption of the two international instruments mentioned above, and more particularly on the negotiating history of the 2006 Principles. A detailed commentary of these Principles constitutes the centerpiece of this article.

I. THE ROLE OF CAUSATION IN MORAL AND LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY 1. The Embedding of Causation in Legal Liability Doctrines 2. Causation and Moral Blameworthiness 3. Causation and the Permissibility of Consequentialist Justification within Agent-Relative Morality and the Law II. PRESUPPOSITIONS ABOUT THE NATURE OF CAUSATION BY LEGAL DOCTRINES 4. The Law's Own Characterizations of its Causal Requirements 5. The Prima Facie Demands of the Law on the Concept of Causation 6. Pruning the Law's Demands on a Concept of Causation III. THE FIRST BLIND ALLEY: THE ATTEMPT TO REPLACE PROXIMATE CAUSATION WITH CULPABILITY AS A PREREQUISITE FOR LEGAL LIABILITY 7. 'Negligence in the Air Will Not Do' 8. Conceptual Problems in Applying the Harm-within-the- Risk Test to Crimes/Torts of Negligence 9. Normative Problems in Applying the Harm-within-the- Risk Test to Crimes/Torts of Negligence 10. The Descriptive Inaccuracy of the Harm-within-the- Risk Analysis as Measuring Proximate Causation IV. THE LEGAL PRESUPPOSITION OF THERE BEING 'INTERVENING CAUSES' 11. The Legal Doctrines of Intervening Causation 12. The Lack of any Metaphysical Basis for the Doctrines of Intervening Causation 13. The Superfluity of Accomplice Liability V. THE METAPHYSICS OF CAUSAL RELATA 14. A Prolegomenon to the Issue of Causal Relata 15. The Facts, Events, States of Affairs, and Tropes Debate VI. THE METAPHYSICS OF THE CAUSAL RELATION 16. Counterfactual Conditionals 17. The Counterfactual Theory of Causation 18. The Role of Counterfactual Dependence as an Independent, Non-causal Desert-determiner 19. Generalist Theories of Causation 20. Singularist Theories of Causation APPENDIX Contract Law and Causation: An Illustration BIBLIOGRAPHY

As basic research in biotechnology yields increasing commercial applications, scientists and their research sponsors have become more eager to protect the commercial value of research discoveries through intellectual property law. Some scientists fear that these commercial incentives will weaken or even undermine the norms that have traditionally governed scientific research. In this Article, Professor Eisenberg examines the interaction of proprietary rights in inventions with these traditional scientific norms. Trade secrecy, she argues, is an undesirable strategy for protection of basic research discoveries because it impedes dissemination of new knowledge to the scientific community. She finds that patent law is in many respects more congruent with scientific norms than trade secrecy because it is premised on disclosure rather than secrecy. Professor Eisenberg demonstrates, however, that the fit between the patent system and the norms and incentives of the scientific community is hardly perfect. Patent law may operate to delay the dissemination of knowledge to other researchers. Moreover, by granting rights to exclude others from using patented inventions for a term of years, the patent system threatens the interest of the scientific community in the free use and extension of new discoveries. Professor Eisenberg concludes that greater sensitivity to the impact of patent law doctrine on scientific norms will help to reconcile the norms and incentives of these two systems.

The doctrine of the margin of appreciation that the European Court of Human Rights has developed in its case law has given rise to considerable criticism. In this article I draw a distinction between two different ways in which the Court has used the doctrine. The first one is in cases where the Court has to decide whether a particular interference with a Convention freedom is justified. In answering that question, the Court often uses the label 'margin of appreciation' without drawing on a substantive theory of rights that can justify the conclusion reached. The second use appears in cases where the Court refrains explicitly from employing a substantive test of human rights review on the basis that there is no consensus among Contracting States on the legal issue before it. My aim is to highlight the principles that can be used to justify each use of the doctrine, by locating human rights within broader issues in moral and political philosophy. Particular emphasis is placed on the distinction between reason-blocking and interest-based theories of rights as well as on the nature of the duties of the European Court, as a matter of international human rights law. Copyright © 2006 Oxford University Press.