Cases for Midterm

Question 1

DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Social Services (1989)

Answer 1

• Facts: child abuse case, government inaction
• Issue: Does the state violate the due process clause when it fails to protect its citizens against private actors?
• Rule: No. There is no obligation of the government to protect citizens from private actors. The government only has the obligation to protect you from the state or government.

Question 2

Castle Rock v. Gonzales (2005)

Answer 2

• Facts: Restraining order case; woman’s children abducted and killed and police did nothing to enforce a restraining order. Statute said officers SHALL enforce restraining order.
• Rule: To have a property interest in a benefit, a person must have more than an abstract need or desire and more than a unilateral expectation of it.
• Holding: Shall = less than must -> no property right based on the statute

Question 3

U.S. v. Lopez

Answer 3

• Facts: Lopez brings his gun to school and gets charged with violating a federal law
• Holding: Because individual possession of guns at specific locations does not affect commerce across state lines, even limiting individual possession does not relate to commerce or have a substantial effect on commerce.

Question 4

U.S. v. Morrison

Answer 4

• Facts: Plaintiff was raped by her classmates and drops out of school, and sued her attackers under the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 to get civil damages because the school reinstated her rapists. The defendants argued that the federal Act is beyond the Commerce Clause
• Supreme Court Reasoning – the one instance of the one victim does not affect interstate commerce, but the aggregate might. However, you cannot aggregate non-economic activity.
• Holding: Congress may not regulate noneconomic violent criminal conduct solely on that conduct’s aggregate effect on interstate commerce.

Question 5

Sebelius (ACA)

Answer 5

• Facts: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Imposed tax on people who did not follow the individual mandate for having insurance.
• Holding: Congress has the authority to enforce the individual mandate because it can be read as a tax

Question 6

Geier v. American Honda (2000)

Answer 6

• Facts: plaintiff sued because his car didn’t have airbags and other cars did, implying they knew his model was unsafe.
• Holding: Court said federal law only required airbags in some cars but not others. Thus, the suit was preempted because the imposition of liability would conflict with the objectives of the law.

Question 7

Lorillard Tobacco Co. v. Reilly (2001)

Answer 7

• Facts: the state tried to put restrictions on tobacco ads at bus stops.
• Holding: the Fed Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act preempts Massachusetts regulations governing outdoor and point of sale cigarette advertising and that it was intended to prevent youth exposure to tobacco ads. ALL the companies had to do was meet the federal standard.

Question 8

Buckman Co. v. Plaintiff’s Legal Committee (2001)

Answer 8

• Facts: Group of patients had operations with bone screws, something went wrong, they tried suing at the state level.
• Issue: Does the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, as amended by the Medical Device Amendments of 1976, pre-empt civil actions related to the alleged fraudulent approval of orthopedic bone screw devices?
• Holding: Yes. Because tort law claims asserting that a medical device manufacturer is liable to injured customers for having committed fraud on the FDA contradicts with the FDA’s statutory responsibility to police fraud itself. The devices rule preempts state action.

Question 9

South Dakota v. Dole (1987)

Answer 9

• Facts: in SD, people above 19 years old could buy some kinds of alcohol. Fed government made a law withholding 5% of highway funds.
• Holding: Congress can tax and spend for the general welfare, including withholding some funds. Also, this was interstate commerce, so they have the ability.

Question 10

New York v. United States (1992)

Answer 10

• Facts: State claimed that Congress overstepped 10th amendment by passing a law mandating certain behavior regarding nuclear waste in order to comply with the national standard.
• Rule: While congress has substantial power to encourage states to deal with the waste, they cannot compel them to do so.
• You can give them the national standard they have to meet, but cannot force them to take/use a certain means to meet that standard.

Question 11

Gonzales v. Raich (2005)

Answer 11

• Facts: Sick woman who is allergic to most medicines is growing her own weed to use for medicinal purposes in California. The DEA shows up to her house and a 3-hour standoff happens between them and the local police who want to protect her. The DA has given her his blessing according to the state Act. The DEA destroys her plants and leaves. Challenges Controlled Substance Act.
• Standard: Supremacy Clause says that IF Congress were allowed to regulate in this area, the federal law would trump because federal law trumps in the Constitution.
• Holding: Regardless of whether or not she sells her plants, her ability to grow weed has an effect on the supply and demand in the national marijuana market, and is thus an economic activity. Since it is an economic activity, they can aggregate the market to extrapolate beyond the individual  if everyone did what she did in terms of economic activity, there would be an effect on the interstate market. Thus, the CSA is fine because it controls interstate commerce.

Question 12

Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905)

Answer 12

• Facts: smallpox outbreak in Boston. Created mandatory vaccination, the violation of which was a fine of $5 and potential prosecution. Jacobson was a reverend. Refused to be vaccinated and was prosecuted.
• Issue: Whether the mandatory vaccination law infringed on petitioner’s 14th right to liberty
• Holding: The vaccination law was a legitimate exercise of the state’s police power. Local boards of health had determined that vaccinations were needed, so state was permitted to act.
• Judgment: for respondents
• Outcome: STANDARDS: Court established 4 Constitutional standards for public health actions by state:
  o 1. Public health necessity – PH powers can be exercised only when necessary to prevent avoidable harm.
  o 2. Reasonable means – the methods used must be designed to prevent or ameliorate a health threat – must have a “real or substantial relation” to protection of the public health, and cannot be a “plain, palpable invasion of rights”
  o 3. Proportionality – PH regulation may be unconstitutional if the burden imposed is wholly disproportionate to the expected benefit.
  o 4. Harm avoidance – the control measure should not pose an undue health risk to its subject (Jacobson was seen to be fit for vaccination).
• Private rights overcome PH when:
  o You know there will be harm to the individual
  o If common knowledge doesn’t support it
  o When you cant uphold the rule using the Jacobson standard
  o When the law is arbitrary or capricious

Question 13

Lochner v. New York (1905)

Answer 13

• Facts: Bakery law restricted bakers’ hours, and bakers wanted to work more. Justified on the basis of protecting the workers’ health, which is an important/legitimate interest.
• Holding: there is no reasonable ground here for interfering with the liberty of a person in the right of free contract; the act must have a direct reason as a means to an end and must be both appropriate and legitimate to be valid in interfering with the right to contract.
• Note: the Lochner era is… over. We do have restrictions on the ability to make contracts now.
  o After this rule, over 200 laws were invalidated (ex: minimum pay, maximum hours, etc.)
• Importance:
  o Allowed era of SC strike down important health and social legislation
  o Unwarranted judicial interference with democratic control over the economy to safeguard the public’s health.
  o Upheld the individual right to contract over the government’s ability to make laws for the public good.

Question 14

City of Cleburne, Texas v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc. (1985)

Answer 14

• Facts: Town requires that if you want to build a group home for mentally disabled, you need a special permit. But you did not need a permit for most other kinds of dwellings.
• Holding: the group does not warrant strict scrutiny because the group is too diverse… this is lot legitimate, nor is any of the other reasons given by the town. Thus, the law fails the rational basis test.

Question 15

Jew Ho v. Williamson (1900)

Answer 15

• Facts: PH authorities were implementing a 12-block quarantine within Chinatown in San Francisco. Police only enforced the law against Chinese people.
• Issue: whether or not the quarantine established was reasonable and necessary
• Holding: The health authorities acted with an “evil eye and unequal hand”
• Reasoning: it was overbroad, since it included blocks without bubonic plague reports. Therefore, the actual operation of the PH quarantine was not in line with the reasoning given for it. Also those bastards were racist.
• Importance: PH measures can be motivated by prejudice and used as an instrument of subjugation.

Question 16

Mathews v. Eldridge, 1976

Answer 16

• Facts: Eldridge was notified his benefits would terminate without an opportunity for a prior hearing.
• Issue: how much due process is due?
• Holding: Generally, the more fundamental the right, and the more invasive the interference/deprivation, then more process is necessary. In this case, there was no need for a prior hearing before termination based on the three factors.
• Standard: requires weighing 3 factors:
  o Nature of the interests involved –> Private interests that will be affected
  o Risk of erroneous deprivation of liberty –> helps avoid incorrect decisions
  o Fiscal or administrative burdens –> Value, if any, or additional procedures

Question 17

Green v. Edwards (WV Appeals, 1980)

Answer 17

• Facts: Greene involuntarily committed under TB law permitting the quarantine of anyone with TB who has the ability to communicate it to other people.

o Issue: what process is due someone held for public health purposes?

• Holding: The law is not constitutional – persons subject to civil commitment measures for PH purposes must receive the same protections of procedural due process as someone facing commitment for mental illness (full range of PPD rights)
• Reasoning: Due Process requires that people being involuntarily committed have access to counsel. Since he was not given counsel, and counsel did not have time to prepare before his institutionalization, he was deprived of Due Process.
• Importance: answers the question of how much you can restrict people for PH reasons

Question 18

Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council

Just know the 2 part test and what it does!

Answer 18

• Answers the question of how much deference a court should give to an Agency’s reading of a statute that it is in charge of administering.

STEPS:

• 1. If Congress has spoken to “precise question at issue”, then the Agency must follow congressional intent
• 2. If there is ambiguity in the statute, Courts will defer to Agency interpretations as long as they are not arbitrary or capricious, because congress has delegated authority to the Agency

Question 19

Gonzales v. Oregon, 2006

Answer 19

• Facts: OR Law, 1994, permitted physician-assisted suicide, through dispensing prescriptions for lethal doses of drugs

Interpretive Rule – using controlled substances to assist suicide is not a legitimate medical practice and is therefore unlawful under CSA

• Issue: was the AG’s Rule a legitimate exercise of agency authority under the CSA?
• Judgment: No
• Reasoning: This was outside the scope about which the AG was permitted to do. Also, because it was a state law legalizing this, and states regulate physician practice under the police power, the AG had no right as a federal agent to step in and interpret their law.

Question 20

FDA v. Brown and Williamson, 2000

Answer 20

• Issue – did the FDA have the authority to regulate tobacco as a nicotine delivery device under the FDCA?
• Holding: Court said FDA had not been given authority by Congress to regulate tobacco, and that Congress had taken several actions itself to regulate tobacco, so it was preempted –> uses the CHEVRON test

Question 21

ALA Schechter Poultry Corp. v. U.S. (1934)

Answer 21

• Facts: National Industrial Recovery Act empowered the President to implement industrial codes to regulate weekly employment hours, wages, and minimum ages of employees. Did congress unconstitutionally delegate legis. power to President?
• Issue: non-delegation doctrine.
• Holding: the law was “without precedent” and violated the Constitution. The law did not establish rules or standards to evaluate industrial activity (in other words, it did not make codes, but simply empowered the Pres to do so); unconstitutional delegation of authority. Note that we are still in the Lochner era.
• Rule: Congress is not permitted to abdicate or transfer to others the essential legislative functions with which it is vested by Article I of the Constitution of the United States.

Question 22

Whitman v. American Trucking Assn. (2001)

Answer 22

• Facts: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revised ozone air quality standards.
• Holding: Agencies do have a fair bit of authority to regulate, and it doesn’t literally have to be expressed by Congress –.> it can be expressed inherently in the agency
  The Clean Air Act properly delegated legislative power to the Environmental Protection Agency, but the EPA cannot consider implementation costs in setting primary and secondary national ambient air quality standards.
• Rule: “When conferring decision-making authority upon agencies, Congress must lay down an intelligible principle to which the person or body authorized to act is directed to conform.”

Question 23

Massachusetts v. EPA (2007)

Answer 23

• Facts: In 1999 private orgs sued the EPA to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions. In 2003, EPA entered order denying request. EPA said they could ignore it because they have discretion because greenhouse gasses aren’t like pollution or other things. They also claimed they would be getting in the way of other important executive action if they did it.
• Issue: is EPA required to regulate CO2 under Clean Air Act as a pollutant that endangers human health? When is agency discretion “arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion”?
• Holding: Court says greenhouses gasses fit within EPA’s statutory authority, and they have to regulate emissions under the Clean Air Act. EPA didn’t give a good enough argument as to why they shouldn’t, and their claim that gasses weren’t proved to cause global warming was arbitrary and capricious.

Question 24

Zucht v. King (1922)(TX)

Answer 24

• Facts: local government mandate for vaccination as a prereq for attendance in public school
• Holding: states may delegate to a municipality the power to order vaccination and the municipality may then give broad discretion to the board of health to apply and enforce the regulation – upheld mandate

Question 25

Brown v. Stone (1980) (Mississippi)

Answer 25

• Fact: Religious exemption for vaccination of children for school – does it violate EPC?
• Holding: religious exemption violates the EPC because it discriminates against the great majority of children whose parents have no such religious convictions

Question 26

Boone v. Boozman (Arkansas)

Answer 26

• Holding: statutes that mandate that religious exemptions to vaccination requirements be granted only to adherents of recognized religions violates First Amendment, but the vaccine mandate itself is constitutional even in the absence of a religious exemption.
• Rule: If you’re going to have an exemption for religion, it has to encompass all religions, or else it violates the 1st amendment.

Question 27

Skinner v. Railway Labor Execs’ Assoc (1989)

Answer 27

• Main issue: railway labor union was suing the FRA that issued mandatory drug testing for EEs who were in train accident.
• Holding: testing permissible for EEs who are in safety-sensitive job. Intrusion to 4th amendment can be justified by:
  o Public safety – these people drive trains carrying passengers!
  o Special Needs Doctrine: When the state has special needs beyond the normal need for law enforcement, the warrant and probable or reasonable cause requirements may not be applicable.
  Ex: in this case, a safety-sensitive job

Question 28

Ferguson v. City of Charleston (2001)

Answer 28

• Facts: Medical University of South Carolina, with law enforcement, developed a policy to test pregnant patient suspected of drug use without their consent, and to arrest those who tested positive.
• Holding: regardless of benevolent intent, did not meet Special Needs Doctrine because the purpose was ultimately indistinguishable from overall crime control.

Question 29

In Re Washington (WI, 2007)

Answer 29

• Facts: A homeless woman had TB, didn’t go to therapy as directed, got pregnant, and went to the hospital to have a baby, was slapped with a DOT order and was put in jail when she did not comply.
• Holding: Jail is a permissible placement option for persons with noninfectious TB who are noncompliant with a prescribed treatment regimen, provided that no less restrictive alternative exists to such placement, and that particular jail to which a person is to be confined is a place where proper care and treatment will be provided and spread of the disease will be prevented.

Question 30

Leckelt v. Board of Commissioners (Appeals, 1990)

Answer 30

• Facts: LPN at hospital who was known by his coworkers to be gay and living with an AIDS patient at a hospital. Compelled by ER to submit to HIV test under job requirement (in complying with notification requirements), refused, was fired, brought suit for discrimination. ER said he was fired for noncompliance. EE said discriminated on the basis of a perceived handicap
• Holding: he can be fired for whatever reason. They hold he is a risk in the hospital setting despite the low probability of transmission, because of the seriousness of the disease. Severity trumps probability in this case.

o Standard: Arline criteria (4)
 1. Mode of risk – likelihood of transmission
 2. Duration of risk – HIV lasts forever.
 3. Severity – extremely serious and deadly
 4. Probability – they admitted it is low probability

Question 31

Glover v. Eastern Neb. Com. Office of Retardation (D. Neb. 1988)

Answer 31

• Facts: state agency created policy saying that EEs need to be screened for HIV.
• Holding: unconstitutional bc it failed the balancing test (privacy expectation v. business interest): low prevalence, low risk, low likelihood of preventing HIV transmission. The risk of transmission was trivial to the point of nonexistence.
• Discussion: Different from Leckelt in that the trivial risk of transmission makes the law unconstitutional, whereas in Leckelt the court thought the seriousness of the disease was the more important factor.

Question 32

Kirk v. Wyman (SC of SC, 1909)

Answer 32

• Facts: Mary Kirk, an elderly woman isolated even though there was “hardly any danger of contagion”, was unhappy that she had been isolated due to her leprosy and claimed that she had the strain that was not contagious to others. She took her case to court saying that the board of health did not have the proper authority to take this action and that furthermore, where she was taken was very undesirable, dirty, and depressing (and previously used to keep African Americans with smallpox). Judge initially said she could not be kept until there was a better place to stay. Board of health appealed.
• Holding: When the distressing nature of the malady is regarded, it is manifest that the BOH was within its duty to isolate… BUT the isolation must not be so clearly beyond that which is necessary to protect the public.

o Here, it’s a no go: Nothing but necessity would justify the BOH in requiring isolation that would be a serious affliction to an elderly lady, and there was no necessity here due to her low risk of contagion.

• Standard: 5 principles governing health regs:
  o 1. Statutes ordering removal/destruction or property or isolation of persons = constitutional when NECESSARY to protect PH.
  o 2. Creation of BOHs is reasonable (PROPORTIONAL) exercise of police power when state must of necessity lodge power somewhere to protect PH
  o 3. BOHs may not deprive persons of property or liberty unless deprivation is reasonably necessary to PH; inquiry PDP requires notice, opportunity for hearing (unless it is so emergent that a hearing would risk PH safety)  must not be ARBITRARY
  o 4. BOHs are subject to judicial review to ensure deprivations are only taken for issues essential to PH
  o 5. Courts must determine statutes or regs if there is no real relation between the preservation of PH and the measure at issue

Question 33

Ex Parte Company (SC OH, 1922)

Answer 33

• Facts: defendants arrested for prostitution and found to have syphilis. Under the law they broke, the law requires examination for venereal disease. Quarantine reg said “all known prostitutes and people associated with them shall be considered as reasonably suspected of having a venereal disease”
• Holding: statutes empowering/providing for the certification, publication, and enforcement of regulations creating state dept of health, PH council, and givig PH council power to make regs is ok.

Question 34

City of New York v. Antoinette R. (1995)

Answer 34

• Facts: an order requiring involuntary detention in a hospital of a person with active TB until completion of treatment, or until a change in circumstances.
• Holding: court upheld an order of hospitalization based on a clear and convincing evidence of a patient’s inability to comply with a prescribed course of medication.
• Reasoning: Due to concern about noncompliance leading to antibacterial resistance.

Question 35

Souvannarath v. Hadden (Cal. App. 2002)

Answer 35

• Facts: Laotian refugee received notice in English requiring her to appear for mandatory examination for her diagnosed multi-drug resistant TB. She did not appear, and was taken at gunpoint to jail, where they planned to detain her for up to two years for treatment. Treated as a prisoner and handcuffed to bed for treatments.
• Holding: Use of jails for isolation and quarantine violates CA law. This conflicts with Antoinette and Daniels, which does allow for prison confinement.

Question 36

Daniels v. Maricopa County (D. Ariz, 2007, ongoing)

Answer 36

• Facts: man tested positive for MDR-TB and confined for 9 months in a hospital prisoner unit.
• Holding: confinement upheld by court; u go Arizona

Question 37

City of NY v. New St. Marks Baths (1986)

Answer 37

• Facts: NYC wanted to close bath houses, which were typically places where a lot of unprotected sex happened… this was during HIV epidemic, and these places correlate with increased spread of disease. After health dept tried to do regular PH prevention methods there, health authorities tried to close them because the places themselves pose a risk.
• Issues: Freedom of association and 1st amendment rights. Challenge to exercise of police power.
• Holding: Court said the freedom was not an absolute right, particularly in this business setting. Thus, the police power was genuine and properly enacted.
• Rule: It is within the police power to close a business, even if it limits freedom of association, when there is a genuine PH concern.