Watching the Sky Not Fall: A Study of State Qualified Immunity Reforms

SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

The Case for Suing Government

SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

Empiricism and Constitutional Torts

Annual Review of Law and Social Science · 2025-07-08

The Supreme Court has deliberately framed the law of constitutional torts as a balance between assuring redress for victims, deterring misconduct, and maintaining effective government services. Yet as the Supreme Court has shaped the contours of litigation against state and local actors (under 42 USC § 1983) and federal actors (under the Bivens doctrine), it has studiously ignored a growing body of empirical scholarship examining the ways law interacts with the behavior of police officers and other government actors. This review documents the Supreme Court's reliance on what could be charitably described as judicial intuition and its indifference to empirical evidence about such central questions as the volume and success of constitutional tort claims, the efficacy of qualified immunity, and the way the rules of tort liability shape the conduct of government officials.

Empiricism and Constitutional Torts

SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

Constitutional Recalibration: Lessons from New Mexico Constitutional Recalibration: Lessons from New Mexico

SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

An Even Better Way

SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

Municipal Immunity

SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

Backdoor Municipal Immunity

SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01

1803. Pediatric Antimicrobial Stewardship: Beyond the Core Elements

Open Forum Infectious Diseases · 2022-12-01

Abstract Background Facility treatment guidelines for antibiotic choice and duration are a priority in the CDC Core Elements of hospital antimicrobial stewardship (AMS). Urinary tract infection (UTI) and community acquired pneumonia (CAP) are common pediatric diagnoses with potential for AMS impact in both inpatient and outpatient settings. We describe a project at a free-standing children’s hospital that was implemented through a collaboration of multidisciplinary providers who participated in the national Value in Inpatient Pediatrics (VIP) program. One aim of this project is to evaluate baseline and improve antibiotic duration for CAP and UTI. Methods This is a retrospective/prospective chart review study that compares baseline and post-intervention duration of antibiotic prescribing for UTI and CAP cases from July 2019-December 2021 based on data collected through the VIP program. Figure 1 describes the timeline of events and results. Patients included were identified by diagnosis code for CAP and UTI. Each case was randomized for inclusion and manually reviewed to ensure it met the diagnosis clinical definition. Cases with underlying chronic medical conditions were excluded from this analysis. Duration of antibiotics prescribed was compared for each group using Wilcoxon rank-sum testing. Figure 1.Timeline of guideline implementation and evaluation Results Among the 351 patients included, 163 had a diagnosis of CAP (98 pre-, 65 post- implementation); 188 with UTI (121 pre-, 67 post- implementation). Post Implementation, there was a significant decrease in median duration of antibiotic prescribing from 10 to 7 days in both groups (p< 0.001). Figure 2.Median duration of antibiotics pre and post program implementation (p<0.001) Conclusion Institutional implementation of guidelines is an important step in local AMS. Guideline implementation alone is not enough to ensure practice change and going beyond the CDC core elements has become important. In our case, participation in a national project with local multidisciplinary involvement was successful in improving duration of therapy for CAP and UTI not previously achieved by the local guidelines. Changes were made to the electronic medical record in the ED to ensure sustainability of this change. Disclosures All Authors: No reported disclosures.

New Federalism and Civil Rights Enforcement

SSRN Electronic Journal · 2021 · 1 citations

• Political Science
• Political Science
• Law

Calls for change to the infrastructure of civil rights enforcement have grown more insistent in the past several years, attracting support from a wide range of advocates, scholars, and federal, state, and local officials. Much of the attention has focused on federal-level reforms, including proposals to overrule Supreme Court doctrines that stop many civil rights lawsuits in their tracks. But state and local officials share responsibility for the enforcement of civil rights and have underappreciated powers to adopt reforms of their own. This Article evaluates a range of state and local interventions, including the adoption of state law causes of action for constitutional violations, improved local budgeting and indemnification practices, and new litigation strategies that encourage government attorneys charged with defending civil rights litigation to take better account of the significant public interest in enforcing constitutional norms. Rather than await federal reforms that may never come, the many state and local officials who have advocated for change can promptly translate their professed commitments into law and policy.