A review of recent developments affecting COBRA rights

Due to the high cost of health care claims and COBRA's status as remedial legislation, COBRA has generated a significant amount of litigation in recent years. While the early COBRA decisions tended to broaden the law in order to provide a remedy to an otherwise uninsured qualified beneficiary, the recent trend in the case law has been to limit the expansion of COBRA rights based on a narrower construction of the statute. Even so, COBRA still represents a legal minefield for employers. As a result, a careful employer will minimize its exposure by monitoring changes in the law and its interpretation and making appropriate modifications to its COBRA documentation and administration. This article discusses some of the more significant recent changes in the law affecting qualified beneficiaries' COBRA rights--and therefore, employers' exposure.     

Beyond proportionate punishment: Difficult cases and the 1991 Criminal Justice Act

Within six months of implementation, the Criminal Justice Act 1991, which had been hailed as the most important piece of criminal justice legislation in England and Wales for many years, was already being undermined in practice, and a new Act, which amends or even reverses some of its more progressive principles, was brought before Parliament. This paper looks at some problems of proportionality in practice — through discussion of penological principles, and through consideration of the kinds of cases which are most difficult for a desert approach. Alternative ideas are examined to see whether they could offer any better framework for penal policy and practice. A mixed theory is advocated, with parsimony as its most important principle.I am grateful to Nicola Lacey, Mike Levi, Mike Maguire and Andrew Von Hirsch for comments on the first draft of this paper.