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The Value of a Statistical Life: From Skin in the Game to Vision Zero
Full text linkThis essay discusses justice issues surrounding occupational safety and health and assesses the ethical legitimacy—the justice—of regulatory cost benefit analysis when the costs in question involve the risks and realization of workplace injury and fatalities. The current “value of a statistical life” for legal-regulatory purposes is 13.1 million dollars. While economists are careful to say that this figure does not “really” represent an attempt to value any particular life, the purpose of even calculating the number is to provide an “aggregated” statistical justification for saying “no” to rules requiring safer work. This seems acceptable until you, or someone you love, is a person at significant risk of being killed. One of the earliest moral and religious challenges, central to constructing modern employment law, was how to deal with workplace harm. Scholars have shown that the perceived inability of tort law to remedy workplace injury and fatality led to a veritable remaking of American law—through establishment of workers’ compensation—that was, in effect, the prelude to the administrative state, and therefore effectively of all employment law.
The moral-ethical dilemma—of work related injury and death—remains a central problem of workplace law. The AFL-CIO estimates that in 2022—the most recent year for which data was available as of the writing of this essay—5,486 employees were killed on the job in the United States; and 120,000 workers died from occupational diseases. During a time of modern, putatively-safe working conditions, these statistics seem almost incredible. At first blush, moral policymaking suggests that the societal reaction to death and injury at work should simply be to stop killing workers. But requiring safer workplaces costs “money.” And the moral question is: how much as a society are we willing to spend to prevent death in the workplace? “Cost-benefit considerations” are inherently moral. One who—because of racial or class positioning in a society, for example—is not likely to be harmed by an activity, may have a great deal of difficulty accurately assessing the moral significance of a risk of harm for others arising from the activity; or in determining whether a certain quantity of risk should be assumed by workers in the broader social interest.
Regulatory “weighing” is the province of economists, not that of workers who are actually exposed to workplace risks of harm and death. Those who argue that strong emotional responses to “fearsome risks” are irrational because of the risks’ putatively low probabilities of leading to harm are typically—perhaps predictably—not exposed to such risks and may suffer from an upper class “anti-safety bias.” It will always be possible to articulate the costs to employers of making workplaces safer, and the benefits to employers of not having to make workplaces safer. Assessment of cost on the worker’s side of the ledger is much more difficult to quantify because it involves the quasi-mystical—and not dollar expressible—question of the worth of life. And the ethical and democratic problem posed is whether the persons asking such questions have sufficient “skin in the game” to be asking the questions or evaluating the answers. The essay reflects on the EU’s “Vision Zero” goal of killing no one in the workplace. It is one thing to admit that it is presently impossible to avoid killing workers on the job. It is another thing to insist that the national goal should be killing no workers at work. Arguing for such insistence, the essay concludes by observing that employers are in fact capable of being much safer than they are
The Value of a Statistical Life: From Skin in the Game to Vision Zero
Full text linkThis essay discusses justice issues surrounding occupational safety and health and assesses the ethical legitimacy of regulatory cost benefit analysis when the costs in question involve the risks and realization of workplace injury and fatalities. The current “value of a statistical life” for legal-regulatory purposes is 13.1 million dollars. Economists claim that this figure does not “really” represent an attempt to value any particular life. But the obvious purpose of even calculating the number is to provide a statistical justification for saying “no” to rules requiring safer work.
The moral-ethical dilemma of work related injury and death remains a central problem of workplace law. In 2022, 5,486 employees were killed on the job in the United States; and 120,000 workers died from occupational diseases.During a time of modern, putatively-safe working conditions,these statistics seem almost incredible.
Regulatory “weighing” is conducted by economists, with no conscious input from workers who are exposed to workplace risks of harm and death. Those who argue that strong emotional responses by workers to “fearsome risks” are irrational because of the risks’ putatively low probabilities of leading to harm are typically not exposed to such risks, and may suffer from an upper class “anti-safety bias.” The ethical and democratic problem posed is whether the persons asking questions about, and setting policies on, risk have sufficient “skin in the game” to be asking the questions or evaluating the answers. The essay also discusses the EU’s “Vision Zero” goal of killing no one in the workplace
Humanizing the Law: Building Better Lawyers Through Mediation Coursework
Full text linkMany students enter law school with the goal of helping others. Traditional law school classes do not help students develop empathy and an understanding of client needs and interests. This paper argues that mediation training in law school helps students improve their understanding of the human experience of litigants involved in legal disputes and builds important empathic, relational, conflict resolution, and problem-solving skills. These skills not only help students connect with and understand their clients better but can promote the self-awareness and self-care necessary for students to become healthier and happier practicing attorneys. This results in students who are more client-centered and better equipped to help others
2025--Skrmetti and the Future of Gender Affirming Care: Law, Policy, and Public Health Perils
No full textEach spring, the Center for Health Law Studies at Saint Louis University hosts its annual Health Law Symposium featuring leading experts and scholars.
Conference topics focus on groundbreaking issues in health law and policy. The symposium proceedings are published in the Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy.https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/jhlpsymposia/1004/thumbnail.jp
Tackling the Next Public Health Crisis: Lessons Regarding Long-Term Care from the COVID ERA
Full text linkThis paper reviews multiple ethical and clinical issues during the COVID era affecting long-term care. The authors are members of one of many long-term care COVID task forces[1] that emerged in multiple jurisdictions to address a pandemic emergency. This paper applies the pandemic ethics literature that informed healthcare providers during COVID and recommends adjusting health messaging and communication that may shift responsiveness in the next public health crisis.
[1]. Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services Long-Term Care Advisory Task Force (in alphabetical order): Muhammad Babar, MD, MBA, MSc, CMD, SNF medical director; Belinda Beard, BS, RN, Division Director, Health Care Facilities, Office of the Inspector General, KY Cabinet for Health and Family Services; Allen Brenzel, MD, Medical Director, KY Dept for Behavioral Health, Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities and Associate Professor, Psychiatry, College of Medicine, University of Kentucky; Sherry Culp, CSW, KY Long-Term Care Ombudsman; Andrea Flinchum, MPH, BSN, RN, CIC, FAPIC, Manager, Healthcare-Associated Infection/Antibiotic Resistance Prevention Program, KY Dept for Public Health; Victoria Elridge, MS, OTRL, Commissioner, KY Dept for Aging and Independent Living; Eric Evans, Associate State Director, Advocacy and Outreach, AARP-KY; Christian Furman, MD, MSPH, AGSF, Health and Aging Policy Fellow (2022-2023), Medical Director, Trager Institute/Optimal Aging Clinic, and Professor, Geriatric and Palliative Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Louisville; Mary Haynes, MSN, MS, RN, LNHA, President, Nazareth Home, Inc.; Leslie Hoffmann, MEd, Deputy Commissioner, KY Dept for Medicaid Services; Keith Knapp, PhD, MHA, CNHA Associate Clinical Professor, Department of Health Management & Policy, University of KY College of Public Health and Senior Advisor, Adult Programs, Office of the Secretary, KY Cabinet for Health and Family Services; Laura Morton, MD, CMD, Associate Clinical Professor, Dept of Geriatric and Family Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Louisville and SNF medical director; Adam Mather, MHA, RN, LNHA, Inspector General, KY Cabinet for Health & Family Services; M. Sara Rosenthal, Professor and Founding Director, University of Kentucky Program for Bioethics, Departments of Internal Medicine, Behavioral Science and Pediatrics and Founding Director of the Markey Cancer Center Oncology Ethics Program; Kevin B. Spicer, MD, PhD, MPH, Medical Officer, Healthcare-Associated Infection/Antibiotic Resistance Prevention Program, KY Department for Public Health; Waqar Saleem, MD, CMD, FAAFP, Assistant Clinical Professor, Dept of Family and Geriatric Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Louisville and SNF medical director; Pam Smith, RN, Division Director, KY Dept for Medicaid Services; Mackenzie Wallace, JD, Director of Public Policy, Alzheimer’s Association of Kentuckiana; Kathleen Winter, PhD, MPH, Director, Division of Epidemiology and Health Planning and Assistant Professor, College of Public Health, University of KY [hereinafter KY LTC Task Force]
2025--The Supreme Court and Immigrants\u27 Rights in a Second Trump Era
No full textThe 2025 Childress Lecture will explore immigration and the U.S. Supreme Court in the early days of the second Trump administration. The 2025 lecture will feature a presentation by keynote speaker Kevin R. Johnson, Mabie-Apallas Distinguished Professor of Law and former Dean of University of California, Davis School of Law, as well as several presentations by other renowned immigration legal scholars and practitioners.
The second Trump administration is attempting to reshape immigration in the U.S. and test the limits of executive power. While the Supreme Court has historically had less control over immigration law than many other areas, it has already been asked to wade into immigration repeatedly in 2025. Its actions have been wide-ranging, addressing issues such as birthright citizenship, deportation procedures, temporary protected status, and even invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport noncitizens. Speakers at this year’s Childress Lecture will examine and debate the administration’s immigration policies and the Supreme Court’s recent involvement in shaping immigration law.https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/childress_lecture/1008/thumbnail.jp
Drawing on the Christian Tradition as a Source for the Renewal of Labor Law Theory
Full text linkDoes the Christian tradition have anything to offer to legal theorists exploring the renewal of labor law from its ossified framework? This Essay argues that the Christian tradition has much to offer. There are streams within the Christian intellectual tradition that offer a third way between a “naked public square” of legal thought that refuses to look at religion as a source of ideas for constructing law and Christian nationalism. Schools of theological inquiry within the Christian tradition such as the Theology of the Social Gospel, Catholic Social Teaching, and Liberation Theology draw on the “Sermon on the Mount” for lessons about how to treat the poor, including low-wage workers. These well-developed theological traditions have much to scholars in the nascent Law and Political Economy (“LPE”) movement as well as labor law scholars. Scholars of labor law and those within the LPE movement draw on moral concepts that sound similar to some of the language that the Christian tradition uses. This Essay urges scholars in the LPE movement to mine the theological schools of thought described above because they provide rich intellectual and moral grist to draw on in constructing an alternate theory of labor law that privileges the needs of workers while drawing on language familiar to millions of Americans who profess the Christian faith
Integration of Mediation Skills as Required by the Nextgen Bar Exam
Full text linkThe National Conference of Bar Examiners (“NCBE”) developed the NextGen Bar Exam to more actively test a broad range of foundational lawyering skills. The timing of the rollout will take several years with the final adoption date in 2028. The formatting of the questions will change, and the “Integrated Questions Set,” where examinees answer a series of questions about a given scenario, seems to be the hallmark of innovation. The NextGen Bar Exam will also include a performance task where examinees will draft a memorandum, legal brief, letter, or similar document. Faculty striving to adapt to the new assessment requirements of the NextGen Bar can introduce mediation and negotiation skills into their courses. Skills taught in alternative dispute resolution courses that can be incorporated into existing curriculum include reflexive listening and reframing questions, identifying the positions versus interests of the parties, understanding conflict handling modalities, and BATNA versus WATNA. For instance, faculty can integrate NextGen Bar Exam Foundational Skills when discussing lease agreements in a contracts class by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of a client’s position based on relevant legal rules and standards. First-year curricular classes and upper-division classes alike will have hurdles and time constraints for the integration of NextGen Bar skills. However, integrating NextGen Bar concepts does not have to be daunting. It could be as straightforward as a fifteen-minute conversation discussing each side’s positions and interests after watching a scenario video and reviewing a simplified lease agreement
Foreword
Full text linkThis volume of the Saint Louis University Law Journal contains a number of terrific articles by participants in the 2024 symposium cosponsored by the Journal and the William C. Wefel Center for Employment Law at Saint Louis University. The topic, Revisiting Religion in the Struggle for Workplace Justice, grew, in part, out of twin, somewhat dialectic motivations of mine: frustration and hope. My own research over the last several years has been focused on ways that people are marginalized because of their sex, gender, and sexuality, particularly through growing claims that religion requires the ability to exclude, to contribute to marginalization
Peer Feedback Skills: A Negotiation Teaching Imperative
Full text linkCritical feedback, especially among peers, is difficult to give well but can be taught. Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and Negotiations teachers can not only teach negotiation and facilitation skills affecting substantive outcomes but also equip students with the confidence and competence to engage well with critical feedback—a skill readily transferrable into any conflict resolution context. In this study, the author engaged a classroom intervention designed to improve peer feedback quality in an undergraduate negotiation course. The intervention included increasing transparency of what makes effective feedback and supplying a video recording of students’ negotiation performance prior to engaging in peer feedback, as well as ensuring at least twenty-four hours of rest time before engaging in feedback. The results revealed that the interventions significantly affected overall feedback quality, with students in the intervention group giving more effective than ineffective feedback while those in the control group gave almost equal amounts of effective and ineffective feedback. Students were also more often willing to tell a peer they exhibited close-mindedness rather than open-mindedness, suggesting increased ease of providing critical feedback. The intervention also improved timeliness of assignment completion. Furthermore, students in the intervention perceived and self-reported greater abilities to give constructive feedback following the course, finding the video playback particularly helpful