Individual Claims to Social Benefits, II

1941 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 872-885
Author(s):  
Jane Perry Clark
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Implications ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
The Social ◽  
Rules Of Evidence ◽  
The Law ◽  
Compensation Law ◽  
Court Process

Since officers who conduct hearings in benefit procedures are given so much latitude and are so free from any leading-strings of a court process, it is of the essence not only that they possess a judicial attitude of mind but that they be keenly alive to the social implications of their work. In 1929, the New York Industrial Survey Commission wrote: “Referees are in every essential judicial officers; and they should be, so far as is humanly possible, above suspicion of improper practices, political or otherwise. They should be persons of mature judgment and be skilled in law—not alone the Compensation law—for they touch many and various points of law not comprehended within the language of the Compensation law. They should be trained in the value of evidence, and they should know the rules of evidence even though they are not obliged to apply them in compensation hearings.”It is safe to speculate that if the above had been written in 1941, it would have contained more emphasis on the social viewpoint needed by referees. They must realize that on them depends to a large extent the difficulties accompanying denial of benefits which not only may cause serious hardship to individuals but may even have repercussions of the utmost importance in the community at large. Thus referees conducting hearings are supposed to have a kind of partisanship toward the law, in that they must constantly remember that its aim is to secure payments to all qualified claimants, not merely to decide the merits of a dispute between two opposing parties. Nevertheless, an attitude which is supposed to resolve doubts in favor of a claimant as required by the compensation law does not negate a judicial frame of mind in deciding the merits of a disputed claim.

scholarly journals Czy idea tak zwanej wtórnej legalności się broni?

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 401-420
Author(s):  
Jarosław Majewski
Keyword(s):  
Legal Culture ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
Final Conclusion ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Basic Assumptions ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Law ◽  
The One ◽  
Made In

Is the idea of so-called “secondary legality” defensible?The aim of the study is critical analysis of the idea of so-called “secondary legality” of an act used by some jurists to explain types of behaviour falling into the category of circumstances excluding lawlessness of an act justification, namely to define the relation between such types of behaviour and the legal system as a whole, and the various sanctioned norms that are part of the system. First, the author examines the relation between the assumption that a type of behaviour which falls within the category of circumstances excluding lawlessness of an act constitutes a legal transgression of the sanctioned norm, and the basic assumptions made in the Polish legal culture concerning the process of creation and application of the law as well as its systematic analysis. He demonstrates that consistent use of the secondary legality category would require a considerable remodelling of these assumptions, above all, rejection of the assumption that legal norms are introduced to be met as well as all consequences stemming from this assumption as well as abandonment of the approach to the law as a set of legal norms that is internally cohesive. Next, the author analyses the internal aspects of the idea of secondary legality of an act. He demonstrates that it encompasses contradictory statements: on the one hand that justifi able behaviour constitutes socially harmful, negative and thus a typical attack on legal interest, and on the other hand that the social benefits ultimately outweigh losses in the case of justifiable behaviour. All the above justifies the author’s final conclusion that the category of secondary legality of an act is not useful.

James Bryant Conant and the Meritocratic University

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morton Keller ◽  
Phyllis Keller
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New England ◽  
Professional Education ◽  
William James ◽  
Student Body ◽  
Christopher Columbus ◽  
American University ◽  
Economic Elite ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Law

The Harvard that James Bryant Conant inherited when he became president in 1933 was the creation of his Boston Brahmin predecessors Charles W. Eliot (1867–1908) and Abbott Lawrence Lowell (1908–33). Under Eliot, Harvard became a university, and not just a college with some ancillary professional education. As he said of the various fields of higher education in his inaugural: “We shall have them all, and at their best.” The Law and Medical schools became world-class. Major scholars began to be more than an occasional fluke in the faculty lineup. And Eliot was the first American university president to become a significant public figure. No less revolutionary was what he did with undergraduate education. His elective system replaced the former tightly regulated curriculum, a laissez-faire approach to education in full accord with the prevailing beliefs of the Gilded Age. It was also a brilliant piece of educational politics. At one stroke it freed students and teachers from the tyranny of each other’s presence. It lulled the undergraduates into thinking that they were free to choose their curriculum when in fact most of them rushed, lemminglike, into a few massively popular courses taught by faculty crowd pleasers dubbed “bow-wows.” This freed research-minded professors to pursue their work relatively unencumbered by undergraduate obligations. At the same time the social character of Harvard College became increasingly “Brahmin,” in the sense of domination by Boston’s social and economic elite rather than by Unitarian or Congregational ministers. Much of Eliot’s Harvard was seriously intellectual; more of it was socially snobbish. Its faculty consisted of a few major figures such as the Law School’s Christopher Columbus Langdell and Philosophy’s William James and Josiah Royce, and a majority who were gentlemen first, teachers second, scholars (perhaps) third. Its student body, over whelmingly from New England and New York, stretched from earnest Jewish commuters (whom Eliot welcomed) to good-family swells who dwelt on Harvard’s “gold coast” of posh dormitories. But the latter set the social tone of undergraduate life.

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