Journal of law and health最新文献

As states start to recognize exotic dancers as employees under Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), states that have not yet classified exotic dancers as employees have put club owners in danger of costly litigation for violating the FLSA. Thus, this Note is designed to act as a road map for club owners and state legislators to recognize exotic dancers as employees in compliance with the FLSA and provide insight into how to avoid litigation. This Note analyzes this issue in four parts; Part IV, the analysis, is split into four substantial sections. Part I gives a short summary of the history and purpose of the FLSA. It then reviews the relevant facts and holdings of three circuit court cases in which exotic dancers were classified as employees under the FLSA. Finally, it concludes with a short discussion of the test used in these cases to make that determination. Part II starts with a broader geographical analysis of the United States and summarizes the current groups of states in relation to the laws surrounding exotic dancers as employees. It then analyzes the industry impact of states that mandated dancers be recognized as employees and states that still do not have such mandate. It also discusses the potential impact on states that have not yet followed suit. Part II then analyzes the practical implications of holding exotic dancers as employees of clubs. Part III presents an anomaly in the current framework of the industry that has the potential to lead to a destructive loophole with feature entertainers. Part IV compares the labor rights of strippers to other sex workers. Part V is a brief conclusion with broad recommendations for club operators and legislators, reiterating the potential impact on the health and wellbeing of the entertainers.

This Article attempts to untangle the complicated web of providing telehealth to those populations it is potentially capable of further alienating from access to healthcare including: 1) race/minority populations, 2) aging adults, 3) individuals with disabilities, 4) non-English speakers, 5) individuals living in rural areas, 6) socioeconomic class, and 7) children, in order to advance the argument that telehealth can be successful in providing healthcare access to these populations. Rather than suggesting that telehealth simply "cannot work" for these populations, instead this Article considers how telehealth can and must meet the needs of these individuals through technology, access, and policy developments. First, this Article explains how telehealth is defined and how the definition has and can continue to influence policy development. Next, this Article explores the issues surrounding the "digital divide" and how this relates to telehealth use. Then this Article discusses how access to technology impacts particular populations. This Article then considers legislation and policy developments both at the federal and state level that have emerged thus far that could help overcome challenges of accessibility, affordability, and usability. Finally, this Article offers policy recommendations for ensuring that the delivery of telehealth can be accessible to those populations with potentially less access to technology to ensure telehealth's successful availability and use for these populations can continue beyond Covid-19.

There are many reports presenting expert policy recommendations, and a substantial volume of research supporting them, that detail what should shape and guide statutes for juvenile competency to stand trial. Ohio has adopted provisions consistent with some of these recommendations, which is better protection than relying on case law and the adult statutes, as some states have done. However, the Ohio statute should be considered a work in progress. Since appeals courts are unlikely to provide meaningful review for the substance of a juvenile competency determination, the need for procedures for ensuring that the determination is initially made in a deliberate and informed manner is significantly heightened. Every aspect of the statute should be reviewed considering the research and scholarship that is newly available since it was implemented in 2011. Furthermore, there is one glaring gap in the statute's protection that cannot wait. The provisions for attainment and attainment review must be amended to include substantially detailed requirements and procedures for the statute to ensure that juvenile due process rights are not violated by making children face adjudications while not competent to do so.

This note argues that decisions like that of NAACP v. Wilmington Medical Center, Inc. have been one of many contributing factors in the disparity in mortality rates of both black and American Indian/Alaska Native newborns in comparison to white newborns across the country. Part II examines the current state of the law regarding issues of discrimination, accessibility of health care, and relocation and closure of medical centers that has disproportionately affect minorities in the U.S. Part III discusses the statistics of white, black, and American Indian/Alaska Native newborn and maternal mortality rates in the United States. Part IV addresses the potential causes of this disparity, which include inadequate access to quality medical care for racial minorities, implicit racial bias, a demand for more minority doctors, and strict abortion restrictions. Part V proposes that a reduction in the racial disparities in mortality rates for black and indigenous mothers and infants can be achieved by implementing comprehensive state-level "public-private" collaborations, and increasing availability and coverage of more birthing resources like midwives. Lastly, Part VI concludes that the current condition of federal and state legislation has not eliminated the racial disparities in maternal and infant mortality rates, and further measures must be taken to achieve this goal.

In 2020, Oregon voters legalized therapeutic psilocybin in response to a plethora of scientific studies showing symptom reduction for depression, anxiety, substance use disorders, opioid addictions, migraines, other mental illnesses, HIV/AIDS, and cancer. The legal rethinking regarding therapeutic psilocybin continues in both state legislatures and city councils. Yet, despite state and local legalization or decriminalization of therapeutic psilocybin it remains illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act. This tension between local and federal law places therapeutic psilocybin users and their employers in a difficult position. Because all types of psilocybin use remain illegal under federal law, a zero-tolerance drug use workplace policy would discipline a state sanctioned psilocybin user for off-site or off-hours therapeutic psilocybin use. Therefore, this article proposes that as states and cities legalize therapeutic psilocybin, jurisdictions should adopt employment protections for therapeutic psilocybin users like states have adopted for medical cannabis users. The proposed statute in this article protects therapeutic psilocybin users from adverse action based solely on off-site and off-hours drug use and balances employers' rights.

Systemic discrimination in healthcare plagues marginalized groups. Physicians incorrectly view people of color as having high pain tolerance, leading to undertreatment. Women with disabilities are often undiagnosed because their symptoms are dismissed. Low-income patients have less access to appropriate treatment. These patterns, and others, reflect long-standing disparities that have become engrained in U.S. health systems. As the healthcare industry adopts artificial intelligence and algorithminformed (AI) tools, it is vital that regulators address healthcare discrimination. AI tools are increasingly used to make both clinical and administrative decisions by hospitals, physicians, and insurers--yet there is no framework that specifically places nondiscrimination obligations on AI users. The Food and Drug Administration has limited authority to regulate AI and has not sought to incorporate anti-discrimination principles in its guidance. Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act has not been used to enforce nondiscrimination in healthcare AI and is under-utilized by the Office of Civil Rights. State level protections by medical licensing boards or malpractice liability are similarly untested and have not yet extended nondiscrimination obligations to AI. This Article discusses the role of each legal obligation on healthcare AI and the ways in which each system can improve to address discrimination. It highlights the ways in which industries can self-regulate to set nondiscrimination standards and concludes by recommending standards and creating a super-regulator to address disparate impact by AI. As the world moves towards automation, it is imperative that ongoing concerns about systemic discrimination are removed to prevent further marginalization in healthcare.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported that the use of assisted reproductive technology (ART) has doubled over the past decade. In vitro fertilization (IVF) is the most prevalent form of ART. During IVF, a woman's eggs are extracted, fertilized in a laboratory setting, and then implanted in the uterus. Many IVF procedures use eggs or sperm that were stored using a process called cryopreservation. A recent survey reported that cryopreservation consultations increased exponentially during the coronavirus pandemic, rising as much as 60 percent. It is estimated that more than one million embryos are stored in cryopreservation facilities throughout the United States. As the use of cryopreservation increases, so too does the possibility that stored reproductive material will be lost or destroyed. Recently, over 4,000 cryopreserved human embryos inadvertently were destroyed at University Hospitals Fertility Clinic in Ohio, and 3,500 eggs and embryos were destroyed when a cryopreservation tank recently malfunctioned at a fertility clinic in California. When reproductive material is lost or destroyed, the aspiring parents; primary harm is emotional; it is non-pecuniary in nature. The emotional harm is particularly extreme in cases where the loss destroys a couple's only hope of becoming parents. Despite the severity of the emotional harm suffered due to the loss, aspiring parents often are left without a clear legal basis to recover emotional disturbance damages. Although emotional disturbance damages are rarely awarded for breach of contract, the article explains why such awards are justified based on the current trend in contract law, as exemplified by Restatement (Second) of Contracts section 353 and posits that clinics and ART professionals are aware at the time of contracting that emotional disturbance is particularly likely in the event of a breach. Scholars have noted that tort damages for emotional harm often are unavailable when reproductive material is lost or destroyed, because the emotional harm is not parasitic to a physical injury, nor can aspiring parents overcome the traditional barriers to NIED recovery because they neither were in the "zone of danger" nor were they bystanders at the time of loss. Therefore, for aspiring parents who reside in traditional barrier jurisdictions, breach of contract damages may represent their only hope to recover for emotional harm. This article posits that ART clinics and professionals have actual or constructive knowledge of plaintiffs' particular reason for storing reproductive material--namely, to achieve a later pregnancy--at the time of contracting, so as to support consequential damages for emotional disturbance. This knowledge of the contract's purpose, coupled with the nature of the transaction and the surrounding circumstances, put ART clinics and professionals on notice at the time of contracting that emotional disturbance is particularly likely to result from a bre

I investigate the constitutionality of hard state border closures in the United States as a prophylactic response to a pandemic. This type of border closure prevents people from entering a State, except for exempt travelers, a category that includes, for example, military, judicial and government officers, and people granted entry on compassionate grounds. Those allowed to enter usually have to then go through a quarantine regime before being released into the community. During the COVID-19 pandemic, no State has attempted such closures. However, epidemiological experts suggest that, in comparison to other border and non-border measures, such closures are more effective. Given the World Health Organization prediction of more pandemics in the foreseeable future, it is imperative that the constitutionality of such hard closures is investigated. I use structural analysis to argue that a recent challenge to hard border closures in Australia suggests that, under a strict scrutiny review, the Supreme Court is likely to uphold such closures in the United States. While actual implementation requires investigating issues that go beyond a constitutional analysis, these findings highlight the need for a wider conversation around a federal goldilocks zone when responding to the next pandemic.

Effective July 1, 1972, California's Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS Act) set the precedent for modern mental health commitment procedures in the U.S. named after its authors, State Assemblyman Frank Lanterman and State Senators Nicholas C. Petris and Alan Short, the LPS Act sought to "end the inappropriate, indefinite, and involuntary commitment of persons with mental health disorder"; to "provide prompt evaluation and treatment of persons with mental health disorders or impaired by chronic alcoholism"; and to "guarantee and protect public safety." Despite citing to these articles of intent, the LPS Act violates its own legislative intent through its inclusion of "gravely disabled" in its enforcement of involuntary psychiatric hold designations (also known as "5150 designations"). First, police officers are not required to make a medical diagnosis of a mental health disorder at the time of a 5150 designation; the broad scope of "gravely disabled" increases the number of persons police officers can involuntarily transport, increasing the likelihood of inappropriate and involuntary commitment of persons with mental health disorders. Second, the broad scope of "gravely disabled" produces an onslaught of 5150-designated persons (whether improperly designated or not) being sent to LPS-designated hospitals with limited resources (e.g., lack of beds and psychiatric staff); this results in patients waiting for an inordinate amount of time for a psychiatric evaluation and/or a hospital bed. Third, it is unclear whether the LPS Act sought to provide protection for the mentally ill or to provide protection from the mentally ill in its guarantee of protecting "public safety"; the inclusion of "gravely disabled" in 5150 designations indicates that the LPS Act provided the public with a duplicitous means of removing the mentally ill, impoverished, and houseless from the streets under the guise of "public safety." This Paper suggests the following to help remedy the effects of implementing the broadly defined "gravely disabled" in 5150 designations: (1) Remove "gravely disabled" from the 5150 criteria; (2) integrate the community with mental health advocacy efforts by creating outreach and education programs; and (3) implement a client-centric approach to interacting with persons with mental health disorders through restorative policing and the establishment of a restorative court.

The momentous public outcry for police reform is the result of police encounters ending fatally, which is notably sixteen times more likely for individuals suffering from mental illness in the United States. These horrific incidents highlight the systemic failings of traditional police departments training and its failure to provide officers with the necessary skills to de-escalate crisis situations involving the vastly overrepresented mentally ill population involved in the United States justice system. This article demonstrates that effective police training involving crisis intervention and de-escalation techniques equip police officers with knowledge and skills that enable them to contrive more positive outcomes for all involved. With a particular focus on Ohio, this article highlights the significant discrepancy between ideal police training and current Ohio requirements, which glaringly fail to require continual police officer training. The article ultimately proposes that the Ohio legislature pass a bill that both requires police officers to complete increased training programs in de-escalation and crisis intervention while providing departments with the necessary funding to make implementation possible. By implementing the proffered recommendations, the State of Ohio has the opportunity to contrive more positive police encounters with mentally ill individuals and the wider community.