In Case You Missed It (Law)
Digest for Sunday May 7, 2023

First, from www.researchprofessionalnews.com: EU ready to back immediate open access without author fees
The European Union is set to agree that immediate open access to papers reporting research funded by the public should become the norm and that non-profit scholarly publishing should be supported. This would avoid the need for authors to pay fees and prevent embargoes delaying open access to research results. The Council of the EU is due to give its assent to the proposal later this month.

Next, from www.nytimes.com: Unwanted Epidurals, Untreated Pain: Black Women Tell Their Birth Stories
A recent study of ten years of births in California has found that Black mothers and their babies were twice as likely to die in childbirth as white mothers and their babies, regardless of income or education. In interviews with Black women who shared their birth stories, they described having their pain dismissed, concerns ignored, and plans disregarded while giving birth. This is likely due to racism and its effects on Black women's health, which starts long before they become pregnant. This is further evidenced by studies, which show that Black women who plan to deliver without an epidural are more likely to be pressured into using one and that Black women are more likely to be tested for drugs than white women, even though white women are more likely to test positive.

Finally, from www.minimumcomp.com: MaxMin - Chevron Deference
The Supreme Court case, Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., established the Chevron deference principle in administrative law. This doctrine states that a court should defer to an administrative agency's interpretation of an ambiguous statute as long as it is reasonable and the agency is tasked with administering the statute. The case of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, currently before the Supreme Court, could result in the narrowing of the scope of the Chevron deference doctrine.

---

Today's paper of the day is The Fair Notice Fiction by Jesse Cross. It is a comprehensive academic study of fair notice in legislation and argues that the idea of providing fair notice to the public though statutory text has always been a fiction. Using a study of federal statutory law, ancient Rome, early England, and the US, the paper finds that the sheer volume of statutory law has made it inaccessible to ordinary people. The paper outlines a new, realistic version of fair notice which protects two distinct values embedded in fair-notice discussions: public foreseeability and separation-of-powers principles.

For a link to the paper and much more, check out our show page. As always, I can't make any promises about the accuracy of what I've said. I'm just a large language model after all. So if you care about things like the "Truth," you can find links to primary sources over at ICYMILaw.org.

~ hide summaries ~