The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (20 USC ' 1232g), more commonly referred to as FERPA, is a federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. FERPA applies to all schools that receive public funding. FERPA's terms contradict the commonly held belief that a non-custodial parent's right to a child's education record is defined only by the text of the stipulation of settlement or court order.
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It is not every day that a Circuit Court of Appeals sets aside as unconstitutional a federal tax statute. When the taxability of untold millions of dollars of personal injury settlements and verdicts is affected, people generally take note. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Aug. 22 struck down as unconstitutional an amendment made to Code ' 104(a)(2) (All references to the Code are to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 as amended). If the decision stands, it could be one of the most significant tax developments in decades.
In September, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, a congressionally created entity dedicated to the study of policy matters pertaining to the public health, issued the results of the study of federal drug safety policy commissioned by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The resulting report, titled 'The Future of Drug Safety, Promoting and Protecting the Health of the Public' and published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, has been widely anticipated in light of recent publicity surrounding Vioxx' and other drugs that, subsequent to FDA-approval, proved more dangerous than thought.
Two Supreme Court rulings, Daubert v. Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Kumho Tire v. Carmichael, have had a profound effect on the treatment of expert testimony in the courts. In 1993, the Supreme Court, in Daubert, articulated guidelines for admissibility of scientific expertise as testimony. Later, in 1999, in Kumho, the Court focused on the admissibility of clinical expertise as testimony. More recently there has been increasing recognition of the inconsistency of trial courts in their construction and articulation of evidentiary standards to medical testimony. One proposed remedy is that 'Physicians should respond by correcting courts' misinterpretations of medical practice and assisting in the development of legal standards that encourage thoughtful and informed consideration of medical testimony by judges and juries.'
