Law Students who can help me find a court case?

lepoissonrouge

I am a nursing student working on a group project for our ethics class right now.... The issue is geriatric failure to thrive. We are supposed to define "legal component" and one of my group mates wants us to find a court case in which failure to thrive is defined from a legal standpoint as opposed to a medical. I know that things like compentency are different in court as opposed to medicine, which I think is sort of what he is going for.... Where is a good place to look? Does anyone have access to any legal databases or know where to even start looking for that sort of thing? We have been searching and are thus far coming up very short.

Thanks in advance!

lepoissonrouge

I think we have convinced him that this is something where lawyer, etc. rely on the opinions of experts, so this may not be needed... but if anyone has anything helpful they can think of I am still game.

Thanks again : )

calliopeia2013

The legal databases that you would use are Westlaw and Lexis Nexis, which you may have at least some access to through your university, if it's a research university.  (I could get it through our library website when I was an undergrad; you may have something similar.)  But you're correct that this is something where the law would most likely be based on the opinion of medical experts; there wouldn't be a seperate legal definition.  (Unlike competency, where there might be separate definitions.)

Jennifer&Nate

I'm hardly a health law pro, but the (very quick and cursory) search I did on Westlaw doesn't really pop up anything. If I had to guess, they would rely on experts to define "failure to thrive" and to determine the reasons behind it. Good luck!

expats14

I am not a lawyer, just a law student, but I'd definitely rely on medical experts for a definition of "failure to thrive." 

We know our limits: medical diagnoses are definitely one of those limits.

lepoissonrouge

Thanks everybody! I kind of figured that's what it was going to be but I wanted to cover all bases, plus my groupmate was being fairly adamant about defining it legally, he's a guy, what can I say?

I think we are all set! Group work done two weeks prior to the deadline, I think we're all sick. Haha