Refractory oxide insulated thermocouple designed and analyzed for high temperature applications

Study establishes design criteria for constructing high temperature thermocouple to measure nuclear fuel pin temperature. The study included a literature search to determine the compatibility of material useful for thermocouples, a hot zone error analysis, and a prototype design for hot junction and connector pin connections

The Affordable Care Act Is Not Tort Reform

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Prior to the enactment of the PPACA, Congress held several hearings focused on subrogation and relaxation of collateral source restrictions as well as caps on damages in an effort to promote tort reform. While the ACA included provisions on medical liability reform, the suggested tort reform was thwarted, and the ACA had no actual legal effect on limiting medical malpractice liability. This article argues that the reality is that the PPACA has done nothing to change the admissibility of collateral sources nor has it enhanced subrogation rights and to do so would deprive plaintiffs of much needed resources to fund future medical expenses. The notion that the PPACA was designed to reform tort liability is, at best, a fallacy

The Affordable Care Act is Not Tort Reform

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Prior to the enactment of the PPACA, Congress held several hearings focused on subrogation and relaxation of collateral source restrictions as well as caps on damages in an effort to promote tort reform. While the ACA included provisions on medical liability reform, the suggested tort reform was thwarted, and the ACA had no actual legal effect on limiting medical malpractice liability. This article argues that the reality is that the PPACA has done nothing to change the admissibility of collateral sources nor has it enhanced subrogation rights and to do so would deprive plaintiffs of much needed resources to fund future medical expenses. The notion that the PPACA was designed to reform tort liability is, at best, a fallacy

Brief of Amici Curiae Administrative and Federal Regulatory Law Professors in Support of Respondents

Amici write to address the first question presented: whether Chevron should be overruled. Properly understood, it should not. Chevron has been much discussed but not always understood. On the one hand, courts have sometimes misapplied the doctrine or failed to understand its legal foundations. On the other, courts and commentators alike have criticized Chevron, often as a result of such aggressive applications. This case provides an opportunity for the Court to clarify what Chevron does and does not entail, while reaffirming the essential role that judicial recognition of constitutionally delegated policymaking authority plays in federal statutory programs. Many of the criticisms leveled at Chevron are based on the premise that it empowers agencies to usurp the authority of the courts to interpret statutes. So framed-and some courts have indeed seemed to understand it this way-Chevron looks like a supercanon of construction, one that requires courts to reflexively defer to what an agency claims a statute means whenever there is some statutory ambiguity. But the premise is wrong. Chevron is not a doctrine for resolving statutory ambiguities as such, but rather for identifying and policing the boundaries of Congressional delegations. It provides a rubric to recognize when (and to what extent) Congress has granted an agency authority to decide a matter left unresolved by the statute, usually because the way in *4 which the statute applies to concrete situations requires elaboration through agency experience or some aspect of the statute requires “the formulation of subsidiary administrative policy within the prescribed statutory framework.” Yakus v. United States, 321 U.S. 414, 425 (1944). Chevron thus requires far more than mere ambiguity-it requires statutory indeterminacy, a gap “left ... unresolved” even after a court has applied all its “traditional tools of statutory construction.” Epic Sys. Corp. v. Lewis, 138 S. Ct. 1612, 1630 (2018). In other words, Chevron addresses, not instances where statutory text might be judicially construed to have this meaning or that, but where, using these “traditional tools,” the court cannot confidently arrive at a judicial construction at all, either because competing interpretations are equally plausible or because identifying a governing interpretation requires policy assessments that courts ought not to make. When Congress leaves such a gap-while constitutionally delegating to the agency the primary responsibility to implement the statute-Congress signals its intent to “entrust[] to the [agency], rather than to the courts, the primary responsibility for interpreting the statutory term” within the limits of the authorizing statute. See Batterton v. Francis, 432 U.S. 416, 425 (1977). By Congress\u27s command, the agency should exercise its discretion to fill that gap, and the courts independently determine and police the boundaries of the agency\u27s delegated authority and ensure it has exercised it reasonably. See Peter L. Strauss, *5 “Deference” Is Too Confusing - Let\u27s Call Them “Chevron Space” and “Skidmore Weight”, 112 Colum. L. Rev. 1143, 1145 (2012). So understood, Chevron need not and should not be overruled. Since early in the history of the Republic, Congress has seen fit to entrust executive agencies to “fill up the details” of the more “general provisions” that it enacts. See Wayman v. Southard, 23 U.S. (10 Wheat.) 1, 20 (1825). Chevron, properly understood, merely assists in identifying the boundaries of statutory delegations; it does not pose the problems Petitioner identifies with the more extravagant conceptions of the doctrine (however justified those concerns may be). Nor does it violate the Administrative Procedure Act-on contrary, Chevron mirrors that statute by requiring courts to independently determine the scope of agency authority and then review actions within that scope for reasonableness. Finally, Chevron promotes, rather than threatens, the separation of powers by giving effect to duly enacted laws. Requiring that Congress do its job is one thing. It is quite another to refuse Congress\u27s choice to delegate certain issues-issues it could not reasonably attend to itself-to the Executive. Chevron respects those choices and should be reaffirmed

A One Term Tort Reform Tale: Victimizing the Vulnerable

During its spring 1997 term, Congress passed the Volunteer Protection Act and considered but did not pass the Biomaterials Access Assurance Act of 1997. The Volunteer Protection Act provides a wide range of tort immunities to volunteers working for charitable organizations. The Biomaterials Access Assurance Act would have provided tort immunity to biomaterials producers. In this Article, the author examines the origins and possible implications of both these tort reform proposals from a class-based perspective and within the broader context of the ongoing tort reform debate. The author concludes that both of these proposals ultimately would harm individuals in vulnerable positions: those in need of volunteer services and those dependent on certain medical devices

Capping Incentives, Capping Innovation, Courting Disaster: The Gulf Oil Spill and Arbitrary Limits on Civil Liability

Limiting liability by establishing an arbitrary cap on civil damages is bad public policy. Caps are antithetical to the interests of consumers and at odds with the national interest in creating incentives for better and safer products. Whether the caps are on non-economic loss, punitive damages, or set for specific activity, they undermine the civil justice system, deceiving juries and denying just and reasonable compensation for victims in a broad range of fields. This Article postulates that capped liability on damages for offshore oil spills may well have been an instrumental factor contributing to the recent Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. More broadly, it argues that caps on damages undermine the deterrent effect of tort liability and fail to achieve economically efficient and socially just results

Rethinking \u3cem\u3eFeres\u3c/em\u3e: Granting Access to Justice for Service Members

In 1946, the ancient wall of sovereign immunity gave way with the passage of the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) opening the courthouse doors to persons harmed by those acting on behalf of the federal government. From the outset, FTCA liability was limited by the expansive discretionary function exception and other express limitations on civil actions. Unresolved in the FTCA was the fate of members of our armed forces injured by actions “incident to service” but outside of armed conflict. Four years later, in Feres v. United States, the Court addressed this question placing dramatic limits on civil tort claims of service members. The limitations were rationalized on the need to maintain order, discipline, and chain-of-command. From Feres forward, most of those injured incident to military service have been denied access to the very system of justice they pledge their lives to defend. That injustice has persisted for seven decades. This Article discusses Feres, the expansion of the “incident to service” prohibition, and recommends overturning Feres, amending the FTCA to allow access to justice in Article III courts for acts neither incident to nor essential for military service. It is time for victims of sexual assault, rape, and medical malpractice to have their day in court. Holding accountable the federal government and those engaged in misconduct will enhance, not undermine, respect for order, discipline, and chain-of-command. It is time for uniformly condemned acts to be subjected to the light of day in Article III courts

Beneficiaries Of Misconduct: A Direct Approach To IT Theft

Almost a century ago, the United States Supreme Court declared that the prohibition against unfair competition serves to protect fundamental values and important rights. “[T]he right to acquire property by honest labor or the conduct of a lawful business is as much entitled to protection as the right to guard property already acquired. It is this right that furnishes the basis of the jurisdiction . . . of unfair competition.” The idea is simple: it is unfair to competitors and inconsistent with basic notions of market competition to allow market actors to steal the work or property of another and use that asset to obtain a competitive advantage over companies that play by the rules. There are a number of settings, however, where current legal recourse is insufficient to address such misconduct; particularly when the item taken is information technology (IT). READ MORE, download the article