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Luz Estella Nagle et al., Russian Oligarchs Using Colombian Bank Accounts to Avoid Sanctions, 38 Int'l Enforcement L. Reporter 145 (2022)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Roy Balleste, The Ethics of Space Exploration: Harrowing Stories of Death, Survival, and the Unknown, 37 Conn. J. Int'l L. 138 (2022)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Stacey-Rae Simcox et al., Review of Veterans Law Decisions of the Federal Circuit, 2021 Edition, 71 Am. U. L. Rev. 1619 (2022)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
In the past year, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Federal Circuit) continued to define boundaries for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (Veterans Court). These boundaries align more closely with congressional intent, especially with regard to the jurisdiction of the Veterans Court and the internal operations of the agency.
This Area Summary discusses eight major areas in which the Federal Circuit articulated important changes in veterans law. First, the Federal Circuit revisited the important and veteran-friendly 'benefit of the doubt' rule in Lynch and modified it. In Lynch, the Court analyzed the term 'approximate balance' and instructed VA to liberally consider evidence and apply the benefit of the doubt rule even where the evidence is not in exact equipoise. Second, the Federal Circuit limited the Veterans Court’s power to fact-find and narrowed its power to find prejudicial error in Tadlock. Third, in Anania, the Court strengthened the 'mailbox' rule by finding that the claimant’s, or advocate’s, own affidavit sufficiently proved proper mailing. Fourth, the Court broadened the constructive possession rules relating to VA-contracted medical reports in Euzebio. Fifth, the Federal Circuit looked to principles of equity in Arellano and Taylor to determine whether tolling or estoppel may be invoked when the question relates to the effective date for the grant of VA benefits. Sixth, the Court clarified effective date rules in Kisor, George, Ortiz, and Buffington. Seventh, in Military-Veterans Advocacy, the Federal Circuit overturned three regulations promulgated under the new Appeals Modernization Act, each related to supplemental claims—a new avenue for veterans seeking to reopen earlier decisions. Finally, in Smith, the Court continued to weigh in on attorney’s fees, an important issue for veterans and their advocates.
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Jaclyn Lopez, Enforcement of Clean Water Act Could Clean Up Water, Save Florida Manatees, 53 Trends 27 (2022)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
Florida’s water quality crisis is best told through the eyes of a Florida manatee. Florida manatees are slow-moving herbivores, roly-poly sea cows that graze on seagrasses throughout Florida’s rivers, estuaries, and nearshore marine waters. But in 2021, algae-choked water caused by nutrient pollution killed hundreds of the manatees.
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Ashley Krenelka Chase, Exploiting Prisoners: Precedent, Technology, and the Promise of Access to Justice, 12 Wake Forest J.L. & Pol'y 103 (2022)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
This article examines the legal evolution of access to information for incarcerated litigants and the role that access to the internet, libraries, and “ownership” of the law play in providing access to the Courts under decades of precedent. It then discusses the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence regarding the way technology has changed American behavior, including access to the internet, and how that significant shift in behavior is impacting incarcerated litigants. It concludes by offering a hopeful – and significantly more fair – approach to providing inmates access the courts and, therefore, true access to justice, without exploiting them in the process.
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Robyn Powell et al., Becoming a Disabled Parent: Eliminating Access Barriers to Health Care Before, During, and After Pregnancy, 96 Tul. L. Rev. 369 (2022)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
The desire to become a parent transcends all identities—including disability. Despite federal disability rights laws, a nascent body of scholarship indicates that parents with disabilities experience substantial and pervasive inequities. Although legal scholars have extensively examined the discrimination that disabled people encounter while parents, there is scant legal scholarship critically evaluating, or even acknowledging, the impediments that people with disabilities experience throughout the process of becoming parents. In particular, legal scholarship has not adequately examined legal and policy barriers that may hinder people with disabilities’ access to health care before, during, and after pregnancy.
This study, conducted in accordance with established methodological practices from the social sciences, responds to this scholarly void and is the first to provide concrete data about the barriers that parents with disabilities experience when accessing health care before, during, and after pregnancy. This study draws original empirical data from qualitative interviews with thirty-eight parents with disabilities. Three themes emerged from the data indicating barriers to health care. First, physical barriers, specifically architectural barriers and inaccessible medical diagnostic equipment, impede parents with disabilities’ access to health care. Second, communication barriers contribute to inaccessible health care for parents with disabilities. Third, programmatic barriers, namely a paucity of policies and procedures about caring for parents with disabilities, negative attitudes, and lack of knowledge among health care providers’, result in health inequities for disabled parents. The Article concludes by discussing potential legal and policy implications of the findings and identifies critical areas for future research.
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Jaclyn Lopez, EPA’s Opportunity to Reverse the Fertilizer Industry’s Environmental Injustices, 52 Envtl. L. Reporter 10125 (2022)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
Seventy phosphogypsum stacks are scattered throughout the United States, concentrated in low-wealth and Black, indigenous, and people of color communities. These radioactive waste heaps have a long history of failures, and present a substantial hazard and unreasonable risk of harm. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should swiftly move to regulate these environmental and public health hazards. This Article examines the regulatory failures that have given rise to the proliferation of phosphogypsum stacks in vulnerable communities and sensitive environments in the United States. It argues that EPA has the authority, and with President Joseph Biden's Executive Orders, the mandate to take corrective action to remedy these environmental injustices.
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Ellen S. Podgor, The Role of Business in Combatting Corrupt Criminal Conduct, 83 Ohio St. L.J. 175 (2022)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
This Essay examines the role of businesses in exacerbating or combatting corrupt criminal conduct. It uses as examples, the part businesses may have played in the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th and the part played by businesses in the Russian aggression against Ukraine. It considers the role of both public and private law in combatting criminal conduct, and looks at whether hybrid criminal statutes are needed to facilitate the role businesses can play in assisting the government in the fight against criminal conduct, whether it be within or extraterritorial to this country. Although not advocating for a laissez-faire approach, especially when the company may be involved in criminal activity, it does remind businesses of how they can change their current poor image through an expressive function and in the process assist the government in fighting corrupt criminal conduct.
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Rebecca C. Morgan et al., Empowering the Wicked: How Some Agents Use a Power of Attorney to Commit the Crime of Financial Exploitation, 30 University of Illinois Elder L.J. 1 (2022)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Jaclyn Lopez and Jason Totoiu, Holding States Accountable for Harmful Algal Blooms: Florida’s Water Crisis in Focus, 33 U. Fla. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 1 (2022)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
Scientists generally agree that agricultural runoff is a principal source of nutrient pollution in the United States. Intensive agricultural practices have resulted in decades of phosphorus and nitrogen accumulating in the natural system which continue to contribute substantially to nutrients entering watersheds. Coupled with failed water quality control measures, this water pollution has led to some of the worst harmful algal blooms (HABs) in recorded history. These nonpoint sources need to be addressed to restore and protect water quality. Florida's Lake Okeechobee watershed provides an apt case study. Commonly referred to as the "liquid heart" of the Everglades, the lake has experienced a proliferation of large scale HABs, sometimes covering an area of more than 500 square miles and observable from space. These HABs wreak havoc on the lake's ecology. When the lake reaches water levels that pose a flooding risk to communities to the south, the United States Army Corps of Engineers discharges billions of gallons of algae and nutrient laden water to the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries on the west and east coasts. These algae blooms cause additional harm and destruction to wildlife in these systems and pose a threat to human health and local economies. This Article seeks to provide water quality advocates, lawmakers, and government agencies with a regulatory and policy framework for addressing HABs in their states, using Lake Okeechobee and its coastal estuaries as a case study.