In this Article, Professor Baron challenges the position taken recently by Dr. Arnold Relman in this journal that the 1977 Saikewicz decision of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts was incorrect in calling for routine judicial resolution of decisions whether to provide life-prolonging treatment to terminally ill incompetent patients. First, Professor Baron argues that Dr. Relman's posit...

Arbitration has existed for centuries in parallel with adjudication 1 as a method of obtaining a binding decision of a dispute between private citizens. Although arbitral awards had to be enforced through judicial proceedings, the courts would enforce them "when fairly and lawfully made, without hesitation or question," as Justice Story declared in 1845 in Tobey v. County of Bristol.' In the An...

Encouraged by a 1990 Supreme Court decision, Medicaid providers have challenged State inpatient ratesetting methodologies under the Boren Amendment. Procedurally, State assurances to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) that payment rates meet the Amendment's requirements must be supported by findings based on a reasonably principled analysis. Substantively, rates may fall wi...

Drug courts are slowly beginning to expand their admission criteria to include more chronic and serious offenders since traditional probation and incarceration have failed to prevent drug use and crime. Drug courts have moved from providing diversion programs for first-time offenders charged with drug possession to developing tracks for more complex clients. Many of these new drug court partici...

Why are the courts having so much trouble deciding what should be done with Phillip Becker? Two years ago this column discussed the first series of cases involving Phillip. At that time the California courts decided that his parents had the right to refuse recommended heart surgery for this twelve-year-old Down syndrome child, even though this would result in a slow and painful death for Philli...

Until two decades ago the results of forensic psychiatric assessments were accepted more-or-less uncritically by the courts. Clinical opinions translated fairly directly into judicial decisions and these mental-health-inspired rulings often resulted in the seemingly unnecessary and unfair detention of patient prisoners. Over the past twenty years several strident critics have pointed out how th...

judicial review on administrative regulations is the great implement of administrative law for guaranty the legality of administrative decisions and courts apply various principles to diminish public authorities offense in decision-making process. in this paper, reviewing the british legal system indicative that common law courts by apply effective principles , play considerable role in upgrade...

This article provides an initial look at how managed care organizations (MCOs) might incorporate cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) into their decision-making process and how the courts might respond. Because so few medical liability cases directly involve CEA, we must look at other areas of the law to assess potential MCO liability for applying CEA. In general negligence cases, courts rely on a...