The jurisdictional bar provision: who is an appropriate relator?

After explaining the role of the qui tam litigation and demonstrating its importance to fighting Medicare fraud and abuse, this article provides a detailed explanation of various court interpretations of the jurisdictional bar provision of the False Claims Act, a common and contentious statutory pitfall for qui tam litigators. The author provides a thorough evaluation of the law among different circuits to assist litigators in choosing favorable jurisdictions to increase their likelihood of success.     

End of life decisions and pregnant women: do pregnant women have the right to refuse life preserving medical treatment? A comparative study

In this article the practice of end of life decisions is applied to pregnant women. This is not an easy task as shown by the extensive case law and literature on the subject. The main conclusion of the article is that the pregnant woman's wishes should always be respected whatever the consequences for the foetus may be. Another position would unjustly sacrifice the woman's fundamental rights to bodily integrity and self-determination for the benefit of a non-person. The result is repeated in the situation where the woman is found to be incompetent or brain dead.     

Adolescents and mental disorder: who consents to treatment?

Although English law recognises that developing adolescents may acquire the capacity to make decisions about medical treatment themselves it does not address the problem of mentally disturbed or disordered adolescents. This article examines the nature of adolescent refusal of treatment and suggests that a line be drawn between three categories of adolescent disturbance--the competent young person who refuses treatment that an adult too may refuse, the rebellious teenager whose refusal is triggered by simple teenage angst, and the mentally ill teenager whose refusal is triggered by mental illness. It suggests that adolescent autonomy needs to be more fully understood and the Mental Health Act more readily used in treating young people.     

A mountain or a molehill: is the illicit trade in cigarettes undermining tobacco control policy in South Africa?

This study estimates the size of the market for illicit cigarettes in South Africa between 1997 and 2007 in order to consider the impact of the illicit trade in cigarettes on the effectiveness of tobacco control policies. Estimates of the illicit market are made using data on smoking prevalence and simulations of smoking intensity. The paper shows that the size of the illicit market to have grown substantially from 1997 until peaking in 2000 between 9.4% and 11.5% of the total market. The most recent estimate for 2007 suggests that the illicit market occupied between 7.0% and 11.2% of the total market. These estimates are significantly lower than the anecdotal claims of the tobacco industry. Although the scale of the illicit market is significant it has not undermined tobacco control policy. Consumption in the total market, including both the illicit and legal market, has declined in size consistently. At the same time, tax revenue from higher excise taxes has offset the tax losses as a result of illicit trade.     

Ownership conversions in health care organizations: who should benefit?

Because equity capital is becoming an important financing source for health care organizations, the conversion of many such organizations from nonprofit to for-profit status is a significant public policy issue. Since many states require converting nonprofits to repay the "community" for its investment during the nonprofit status period, three questions arise: (1) How much is the entity worth? (2) How much of that worth should be returned to the community? (3) In what form should it be returned? The paper addresses these questions, and demonstrates why responsible public policy calls for them to be carefully considered if community interests are to be preserved.     

Fat and the law: who should take the blame?

The incidence of obesity in both adults and children is rising at a rapid rate in most developed countries, including in Australia. Some obese people are seeking to place the blame for their condition on the fast-food industry, as demonstrated by the recent litigation in the United States brought by two obese plaintiffs against McDonald's. This litigation was unsuccessful, and on existing Australian negligence principles any similar litigation commenced here is likely to suffer the same fate. Principles of personal responsibility, autonomy and free will should prevail to deny a negligence claim. The risk of obesity and concomitant health problems from eating fast food to excess is an obvious risk which the plaintiff should not have ignored and which he or she has voluntarily assumed. It is for the Australian Government, not the courts, to regulate the behaviour of the fast-food industry. The government should take action by requiring all major fast-food chains to label their products with nutritional information, and by imposing restrictions on the advertising of food to children.