Volume 18, Issue 2 (Spring 2021)

Posted in Issues Archives

Reading Time: 5 minutes

TITLE IX LIABILITY FOR ONLINE PEER- ON-PEER SEXUAL HARASSMENT.

Bunyad Bhatti

Sexual harassment is generally defined as unwelcome advances of sexual nature, “requests for sexual favors”, or any physical or verbal “conduct of a sexual nature”. The conduct can occur during employment, education, or in a living environment, and the refusal or acceptance of such conduct is used as a factor in decisions affecting the individual’s role in these environments. Sexual harassment can either unreasonably impact the individual’s work performance, or it can create an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment. Read More.

SMALL BUT NOT FORGOTTEN: ADOCATING FOR LEGAL GUIDELINES IN THE INTENSIVE CARE OF PREMATURE INFANTS WHEN LEGAL GUIDANCE IS SCARCE.

Brandy Booth

Currently there is a lack of legal guidance regarding the resuscitation and implementation of life-sustaining treatment for premature infants born in the gray zone of viability, causing inconsistency in hospital policy throughout the nation. This inconsistency negatively impacts the data collected, which is then heavily relied on by doctors to determine if a premature infant should or should not receive resuscitation and lifesaving medical treatment. Amending the current statute governing preterm labor and delivery to create a consistent procedure throughout the United States will help with the collection of data, understand the factors that impact prematurity, protect the rights of parents to determine a child’s medical treatment, and push for doctors to consider what other factors are involved when using a best interest assessment. Read More.

THE INTERSECTION OF EPIDEMIOLOGY AND LEGAL AUTHORITY: COVID-19 STAY AT HOME ORDERS.

Katherine Drabiak

Federal and state government have the power and duty to protect the public from communicable disease. In the U.S., federal and state responses to the global pandemic of SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 relied heavily on quarantine-like actions designed to slow the spread of SARS-CoV- 2. This article summarizes initial epidemiological data on SARS-CoV- 2/COVID-19, describes how the data correspond to federal and state authority for isolation and quarantine, and discusses the scope and limits of authority to control communicable disease through measures such as Stay at Home Orders. Stay at Home Orders raise four key Constitutional issues: (1) the right to pursue an economic livelihood and engage in legitimate business; (2) the right to lawful assembly; (3) the right to practice one’s religion; (4) the right to interstate and intrastate travel. Delving into the history of Constitutional jurisprudence, this article explains the scope of each interest, parameters of permissible regulation, and provides corresponding analysis as applied to Stay at Home Orders. Finally, this article outlines elements of strategic health policy planning for communicable disease. Read More.

A MODERN FORFEITURE: TOWARDS ABOLITION OF THE LIFE INSURANCE SUICIDE EXCLUSION.

Timothy S. Hall

This article proposes a new approach to a very old problem: Should an individual who dies by suicide thereby lose their life insurance coverage, depriving their beneficiaries of the protection offered by the policy? Modern courts and policies almost uniformly enforce such provisions; however, they are vestiges of an anachronistic view of suicide as a crime. Viewing suicide through a criminal lens has long justified a punitive approach, including the forfeiture of assets. Modern views of suicide, however, do not support its criminalization, and it is practically never treated as a criminal act in the 21st century. Nonetheless, the denial of insurance benefits under suicide exclusion clauses persists in punishing the heirs and beneficiaries of these individuals, creating a modern version of asset forfeiture. I propose that insurance laws be reformed in a way that will protect both the legitimate public policy of not allowing insurance to act as an incentive to suicide; but that will also preserve life insurance’s function of cushioning the financial blow of an untimely death. There has been little recent scholarship considering this problem – after a burst of scholarly interest in the first decades of the twentieth century, most scholars have considered this a settled question. Read More.

SAFETY FIRST: THE WELLNESS AND WALLET DANGERS OF CANADIAN DRUG IMPORTATION.

Kaitlin Hackett

High drug costs plague the United States. Because of these high costs, patients avoid the doctor, do not take their medication as prescribed, substitute their medication, or even illegally trade medication. Over recent years, drug prices have skyrocketed to even more outlandish costs in the United States, making politicians more eager than ever to be the ones who solve this crisis. In 2019, it is projected that 345.7 billion dollars were spent on prescription drugs in the United States. Patient out-of-pocket costs grew from “$56 billion in 2014 to $61 billion in 2018,” and were expected to be even higher in 2019. Read More.

TURNING THE TIDE: A HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF NEW JERSEY FORECLOSURES, AND THE IMPACT OF 2019 NEW JERSEY RECOVERY LEGISLATION.

Cody W. Marks

New Jersey is known for a lot of wonderful things; the Jersey Shore, its strong public education system, its rich national history and the debate on whether “Central Jersey” exists (subjectively, a “Central Jersey” does exist as that is where the author was born). Unfortunately, New Jersey is known to consistently rank in the top two states annually with the greatest ratio of residential home foreclosures (trading periodically with Delaware). As of August 2019, one in every 1,192 New Jersey residential homes foreclosed. Compared nationally, in October 2019, the nationwide foreclosure rate was one in every 2,453 housing units, with New Jersey leading the way with a foreclosure of one in every 1,316 homes. However, the recent national foreclosure trend is in stark contrast with New Jersey. Read More.