Pending Litigation Research Articles

Oral therapy for interstitial cystitis: pentosan polysulfate sodium

It is currently assumed that interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome is caused by damage to the glycosaminoglycane layer on the urothelium of the urinary bladder. This layer can be repaired by oral therapy with pentosan polysulfate sodium. The focus of this article is on the history of this drug, its efficacy, its valuation in guidelines and especially the possible correlation with maculopathy. Literature research in PubMed and Embase. PPS has a US and European approval for the therapy of IC characterised by glomerulations or a Hunner lesion detected by endoscopy and bladder distension. Its efficacy was proven in randomised trials. This led to a recommendation as a basic pharmaceutical therapy (in addition to behavioural intervention, dietary therapy or other drug treatments such as pain therapy). After a treatment period of six months, efficacy should be re-evaluated. Side-effects include mild haemodilution, nausea and loss of hair. Two publications of a US eye clinic have recently postulated a correlation between prolonged high-dose therapy with PPS and a special kind of maculopathy. Although this correlation was rejected in a large-scale health service study in Germany, a "red-hand-letter" led to the recommendation to perform an ophthalmologic examination before and during the treatment with PPS. Due to a pending litigation between payers and the distributor, PPS is currently out of trade in Germany. However, PPS can still be prescribed but must be imported from adjacent European countries. Unfortunately, these modalities have led to a significant undersupply of patients with IC/BPS. It is feared that this undersupply will increase further as the litigation is ongoing. Being the only causally acting compound in the therapy of IC/BPS, PPS has an exceptional status. Although an ongoing litigation is pending in Germany and the correlation with maculopathy is still unclear, PPS must remain part of the current and future therapy of IC/BPS.

Litigation against clients and audit report lag: an examination of the role of state ownership and regional legal development in China

PurposeCompanies may be defendants in lawsuits that are unresolved at year-end. This paper aims to consider whether the financial statements of companies facing litigation claims (pending litigation) are more time-consuming to audit due to the complexity and subjectivity of contingent liabilities associated with pending litigation. The authors consider whether auditors tailor their approach to pending litigation based on two distinct factors in the Chinese business environment: the client’s government ownership status and the legal development of the region in which the company is based.Design/methodology/approachData on litigation against companies and their audit report lags were obtained for 18,029 firm-year observations of Chinese companies from 2008 to 2017. The sample was subsequently divided based on whether the company was a state-owned enterprise (SOE) and based on whether the company was based in a region of China with a more-developed and more market-oriented legal system.FindingsThe overall results indicate that audits of companies with pending litigation take 2.9 days longer than those of companies without pending litigation. For companies with multiple pending claims, each additional claim is associated with 1.9 more days of audit report lag. These effects are weaker for SOEs and for companies in regions of China with less developed legal systems. The results are consistent with the idea that auditors tailor their response to pending litigation based on the risk profile of the client, including consideration of SOE status and regional legal development.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to consider the potential effect of pending litigation (including claims not disclosed or recognized in financial statements) on audit report lags and how environmental business factors can influence this relationship.

Take a deeper look at possible implications of Fresno State Title IX lawsuit

After California State University, Fresno announced in October 2020 that men's wrestling and tennis and women's lacrosse would be cut at the end of the 2020–2021 academic year, five members of the women's lacrosse team sued the school. They filed a Title IX lawsuit against Fresno State in U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California, along with a motion seeking a preliminary injunction barring the cut, as well as an order to compel Fresno State to treat the team fairly during the pending litigation. In April 2021, the court granted the motion in part and denied the motion in part.

The scale and scope of corporate litigation exposure and the factors that explain contingent loss disclosures

We collect a sample of 75,421 lawsuits filed against 90,255 public company defendants from 2006 through 2016 using federal district court docket information. These lawsuits involve an array of allegations, including product liability, civil rights discrimination, improper compensation and labor practices, antitrust violations, pollution, trademark and copyright violations, and patent infringement. The vast majority of these lawsuits likely do not make it onto the radar of investors: only 3% of lawsuit-defendants disclose the pending litigation at any point, with disclosure by plaintiffs and fellow defendants increasing the overall rate of disclosure to 6%. If disclosed, the decision to do so typically occurs early in the legal process, suggesting that the type of claim and the circumstances surrounding its filing—as opposed to how the lawsuit unfolds over time—drive the decision to disclose. Prior SEC scrutiny, the desire to hide potential losses that may make existing debt look particularly risky, and incentives to shape the narrative relative to other available lawsuit information factor into firms’ disclosure decisions. We also find that increased contingency-related concerns expressed in SEC comment letters coincided with the FASB’s consideration of loss contingencies in the 2008 to 2012 timeframe. Yet, the rate of disclosure (particularly of losses) declined over our sample period. Overall, our findings inform the debate about contingency disclosure standards and enforcement. In so doing, our study offers researchers a measure of overarching legal exposure that allows for the study of litigation risk, as well as firm risk more broadly, from new and increasingly relevant perspectives.

Brief of Amici Curiae Tax Law Professors Tessa Davis and Clint Wallace in Support of Respondent (SC DOR)

In 2016, Amazon decided that it was not responsible for collecting and remitting South Carolina sales and use tax for sales it made to South Carolina residents through its website if those sales were supplied by third-party merchants. The South Carolina Department of Revenue (DOR) was promptly alerted to this practice by confused Amazon customers who noticed some of their Amazon purchases did not include sales tax, and after an examination the DOR determined Amazon owes tax liability plus penalties and interest of over $12 million for the first quarter of 2016. Amazon continued the practice at issue here into 2019. In the pending litigation, Amazon asserts that South Carolina's 2019 marketplace facilitator legislation, which followed the U.S. Supreme Court's Wayfair decision, was necessary to enable South Carolina to require Amazon to collect sales tax on all in-state transactions completed through its website, and that the DOR’s position that Amazon was responsible for collecting sales tax for all transactions on its website--including those supplied by third-party merchants--amounts to retroactive taxation. Amazon misinterprets the relevant law and ignores the historical development of federal constitutional jurisprudence on nexus and South Carolina’s sales tax statutes. Further, Amazon’s assertions are contrary to sound tax policy and administration. We focus on dispelling three particular misconceptions in Amazon’s arguments. First, contrary to Amazon’s and other Amici’s assertions, the 2019 legislation was not necessary to enable South Carolina to impose sales tax obligations on Amazon because Amazon’s decision in 2011 to establish physical nexus in the State empowered the State to impose those obligations. Second, the formality of Amazon’s corporate organizational structure does not shield it from sales tax obligations for all sales on its website. Third, failure to collect sales taxes from Amazon would create a tax subsidy that benefits Amazon to the detriment of local sellers who compete with Amazon; that result was unintended by the General Assembly, unexpected even by Amazon when it established a physical nexus in South Carolina, and it violates established principles of equitable and even-handed tax administration.

Access to Justice for Victims of Conflict-related Sexual Violence

Abstract Despite persistent impunity for conflict-related sexual violence, there have been a limited number of significant cases holding perpetrators accountable within national justice systems. One of these cases is the Sepur Zarco case, in which two former military members were accused of committing acts of sexual violence, sexual slavery and domestic slavery near a military outpost in Sepur Zarco during the civil war in Guatemala. In a landmark verdict issued in February 2016, a Guatemalan court convicted the two accused, marking the first time a Guatemalan court has convicted former military members for acts of sexual violence committed in the context of the country’s civil war, and the first instance of a domestic court prosecuting sexual slavery as an international crime. In acknowledging that these acts amounted to grave crimes, the Sepur Zarco verdict changed the narrative about sexual violence in Guatemala’s conflict. Up until then — as in other conflicts in the region and beyond — sexual violence had not been recognized as a separate crime, equivalent to other crimes committed during the conflict, for which perpetrators could be held accountable. This chapter will highlight some of the critical developments prior to the case, as well as the legal and political strategies employed in the case, which led to its remarkable success. It will also offer some reflections about the challenges that have emerged since the Sepur Zarco case and the potential lessons learned for pending and future litigation of similar cases in the region.

Article 129 - Supreme Court to Be a Court of Record

The Supreme Court of India shall be court of record and shall have all the powers of such court including the power to punish for contempt of itself. Court of Record is defined as a court whereof the acts and judicial proceedings are enrolled for perpetual memorial and testimony, and which has power to fine and imprison for contempt of its authority. Contempt of court signifies not only willful disregard or disobedience of its orders, but such conduct as tends to bring the authority of the court and the administration of the law into disrespect or to defeat, impair, or prejudice the rights of witnesses or parties to pending litigation. It is clear from the above definitions in India the Supreme Court and High Courts act as Court of Records by virtue of Article 129 and Article 215 of Indian Constitution respectively.

P63. Comparing patient-reported outcome scores among spine patients: motor vehicle accident insurance versus workers compensation versus general population

BACKGROUND CONTEXT Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) allow patients to validly self-report functional status, pain level and mental health in comparison with the greater population. Many patients with MVA insurance have concerns regarding causation of their injuries and may be prone to litigation. There is a concern that patients seeking spine care with MVA insurance or WC may report worse symptoms than the general spine population in order to gain external benefit. PURPOSE To determine whether Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Physical Function (PF), Pain Interference (PI), and Depression scores at new patient spine visits differed based on whether a patient has Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA) insurance, suffered a workers compensation (WC) injury, or are part of the general population. STUDY DESIGN/SETTING Retrospective review of prospectively collected data at an urban, tertiary care, academic medical center spine clinic. PATIENT SAMPLE A total of 15,158 new patient visits to a spine clinic. OUTCOME MEASURES 1) Insurance type (Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA) Insurance vs. Workers Compensation vs. General Population/All Else); 2) Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Physical Function (PF), Pain Interference (PI), and Depression. METHODS Patients presenting to a tertiary academic spine clinic between 02/2015 and 01/2018 for a new patient visit completed PROMIS PF, PI and Depression CATs. Patients were divided into three groups: 1) MVA insurance, which may be used as a proxy for potential pending litigation; 2) WC; 3) all other patients. Bivariate analyses were used to: 1) compare patient characteristics; 2) compare mean PROMIS scores; and 3) compare PROMIS score floor effects across the 3 groups. RESULTS A total of 15,158 new patient visits (general pop: 14,452; WC: 336; MVA: 370) fit our inclusion criteria. Patients with MVA insurance or WC had worse PROMIS PF (37.0 vs WC: 36.7 vs general pop: 40.4), PI (65.7 vs WC: 65.9 vs general pop: 61.7), and Depression (55.1 vs. WC: 54.5 vs general pop: 50.8) scores than the general population. PROMIS Depression and PROMIS PI had lower floor effects in the MVA insurance and WC groups (Depression: MVA, 6.2% vs WC, 8.3% vs. general pop, 12.5%; PI: MVA, 0.5% vs WC, 0.3% vs general pop, 2.8%). All differences were statistically significant at p CONCLUSIONS Patients seeking spine care who have MVA insurance, which may represent potential pending litigation, or WC have worse self-reported physical function, pain coping mechanisms, and depression than the general spine population. This may be due to hopes of external gains, monetary or otherwise, or because injuries leading to such situations are genuinely more severe. FDA DEVICE/DRUG STATUS This abstract does not discuss or include any applicable devices or drugs.

Disability groups file class‐action lawsuit against Oregon

Disability Rights Oregon and four other groups filed a class‐action lawsuit Jan. 22 against the state of Oregon in U.S. District Court saying the state denies hundreds of children with disabilities the right to attend a full day of school, according to U.S. News & World Report. The lawsuit filed in federal court in Eugene comes on the first day of Oregon's legislative session and names Gov. Kate Brown and the Oregon Department of Education and its director, Colt Gill, as defendants. It says that children with disabilities are frequently removed from the general classroom and given instruction separately or are sent home because of disruptive behaviors. In some cases, the students remain out of class for days or weeks, according to the complaint, and the problem is worse in small and rural districts. Brown's office didn't immediately return a message seeking comment. Marc Siegel, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Education, said he could not comment on pending litigation but added in a statement that the department is “committed to equity and excellence for every learner.” The lawsuit was filed by a list of concerned families, attorneys and advocates, including Disability Rights Oregon, the National Center for Youth Law, the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates and the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.

Euthanasia: Global Scenario and Its Status in India.

The legal and moral validity of euthanasia has been questioned in different situations. In India, the status of euthanasia is no different. It was the Aruna Ramachandra Shanbaug case that got significant public attention and led the Supreme Court of India to initiate detailed deliberations on the long ignored issue of euthanasia. Realising the importance of this issue and considering the ongoing and pending litigation before the different courts in this regard, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India issued a public notice on May 2016 that invited opinions from the citizens and the concerned stakeholders on the proposed draft bill entitled The Medical Treatment of Terminally Ill Patients (Protection of Patients and Medical Practitioners) Bill. Globally, only a few countries have legislation with discreet and unambiguous guidelines on euthanasia. The ongoing developments have raised a hope of India getting a discreet law on euthanasia in the future.

Texas sues FDA over execution drug

Texas last week filed a lawsuit seeking to force FDA to decide whether the state may legally import thiopental sodium, a drug crucial to administering lethal injections. In July 2015, U.S. Customs agents, at FDA’s request, seized 1,000 vials of thiopental sodium at a Houston airport “for further analysis,” according to the court filing. The barbiturate has not been approved by FDA for injection into humans. But the Texas Department of Criminal Justice argues that importation is lawful for the purposes of carrying out death sentences. “FDA has an obligation to fulfill its responsibilities faithfully and in a timely manner,” says Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. “My office will not allow FDA to sit on its hands and thereby impair Texas’ responsibility to carry out its law enforcement duties.” FDA says it does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation. Texas and other states have struggled for years to obtain

When the Curtain Must Be Drawn: American Experience with Proceedings Involving Information That, for Reasons of National Security, Cannot Be Disclosed

In numerous contexts today, ranging from no-fly lists, to the designation of foreign terrorist organizations, to controls over foreign investments in the United States, federal authorities reach decisions having dramatic consequences for individuals’ liberty and property on the basis of information that those individuals cannot obtain, even in summary form. Recent and pending litigation has challenged these deprivations on due process grounds, with only moderate success. Perhaps unclassified information on which the government has acted must be revealed, with an opportunity given to challenge it and to submit contrary evidence; but in the words of the DC Circuit writing last summer, “due process does not require disclosure of classified information supporting official action. [That information] ‘is within the privilege and prerogative of the executive, and we do not intend to compel a breach in the security which that branch is charged to protect.’” Reviewing these developments, this paper marks a sharp contrast with the greater willingness of courts to force information-sharing during the Cold War-McCarthy era, when Communism and Communist front organizations, not terrorism, were the driving concerns. The present situation has elicited a range of dark scholarship addressing the impact of emergency on liberties and procedures. A colleague has argued in celebrated scholarship that “If we are to protect our civil rights and civil liberties against [today’s terrorist] threats, the aggressive use of informants, surveillance, wiretaps, searches, interrogations, and even group-based profiling must be measured not only against the liberties these practices constrict, but also with respect to the liberties they may protect. It is simply not sufficient to say that augmenting [our usual law enforcement] practices with laws and practices more appropriate to counterterrorism is necessarily inconsistent with protecting our civil rights and civil liberties.” Although today’s courts remain conscious of the rights impinged upon by national security concerns and willing to offer some protection to them, one may see a regrettable regression in the contrasts between the treatment of procedural claims in the Cold War’s emergencies and today’s.

¿Cuál es la naturaleza del órgano que genera pleito pendiente internacional ante la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos?

<p>El artículo describe lo que la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos entiende por la expresión “otro organismo internacional gubernamental”, al analizar la admisibilidad de una petición individual en relación con la existencia o no de pleito pendiente internacional. A partir de una investigación básica, descriptiva y deductiva se aborda la pregunta ¿cuál es la calidad del órgano que genera pleito pendiente internacional ante la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos? El objetivo general es identificar las líneas de argumentación de la Comisión cuando un Estado propone la inadmisibilidad de una petición por la existencia de pleito pendiente internacional. Se concluye que se está en presencia de pleito pendiente internacional cuando se tramita de forma conjunta una petición ante otro órgano de protección de derechos humanos al cual el Estado haya concedido competencia, considerando además que el mandato de dicho órgano debe ser convencional y el procedimiento seguido por él adjudicativo, contencioso y contradictorio.</p>

Reducing Smoking Risks While Honoring Residents' Choices

Reducing Smoking Risks While Honoring Residents' Choices

'Is the spear mightier than the artist's brush?': Umkhonto v Umdwebi Bhulashi in perspective

Owen Dean is Professor of Intellectual Property Law and Incumbent of the Anton Mostert Chair of Intellectual Property Law, Faculty of Law, Stellenbosch University. Mabel Jansen is Judge of the North Gauteng High Court. A South African artist, Brett Murray, painted a portrait of the South African President, Jacob Zuma, which showed him with his genitals exposed. This painting, called “The Spear,” was exhibited at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg. Murray explained that the painting was a satirical commentary on the morals and conduct of President Zuma. The painting and its exhibition, as well and coverage of it in the media, in particular by the newspaper City Press, gave rise to a furore. It was alleged that the painting impinged on the dignity and right of privacy of the President. Court proceedings seeking the removal of the painting from the gallery and the cessation of public dissemination of pictures of it were launched on behalf to President Zuma. Before the matter came to court individuals defaced the painting by painting a large smear of red paint over the controversial portion of it, thus obliterating the material causing offence. This caused a further uproar. Questions of defamation, the right of privacy and protection of dignity were raised and they were weighed up against the fundamental right of freedom of speech. Copyright and other intellectual property rights came into consideration. The defacement of the painting precipitated a settlement of the court proceedings before the matter came before the court. The Goodman Gallery and City Press conceded the relief sought in the pending litigation and the matter was largely defused from a practical point of view. However, in this article the authors canvass the legal issues which the incident raised, but were not ventilated before the court by virtue of settlement of the litigation. They express their views on the merits of the various possible causes of action.

An Image of God: The Catholic Struggle with Eugenics by Sharon M. Leon (review)

Reviewed by: An Image of God: The Catholic Struggle with Eugenics by Sharon M. Leon Paul A. Lombardo An Image of God: The Catholic Struggle with Eugenics. By Sharon M. Leon. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2013. Pp. ix, 226. $45.00. ISBN 978-0-226-0388-8.) When Pope Pius XI issued his encyclical Casti Connubii in 1930, he specifically addressed “some who are over solicitous for the cause of eugenics” and seek to employ “medical action” in the form of surgical sterilization. Historians reference the encyclical as the most authoritative Roman Catholic opposition to eugenic sterilization laws passed in the first third of the twentieth century. But relatively little historical attention has been paid to how American Catholics engaged the eugenics movement before Rome spoke. Thanks to Sharon Leon’s An Image of God: The Catholic Struggle with Eugenics, we now have a much more nuanced picture of when Catholic opposition to sterilization took shape, and the motives and arguments that gave it form. Leon’s book opens three new doors in the history of eugenics. First, she provides a detailed roadmap to politics among the faithful, noting how during the early years of the American eugenics movement, the pro-natalist thrust of so-called “positive eugenics” echoed traditional church thinking that Pius would summarize in Casti Connubii as “salutary counsel for more certainly procuring the strength and health of the future child.” This feature of the growing eugenics movement provided an attraction to some important American Catholic thinkers. Second, Leon explains that Catholic critics of eugenic sterilization went beyond doctrinal arguments to focus strategically—and as history would later conclude, accurately—on the scientific weakness of eugenic theory. Third, both before and after Buck v. Bell, the watershed Supreme Court case that validated the constitutionality of state laws mandating eugenic sterilization, Catholic critics of the practice highlighted individual human dignity and the moral significance of bodily integrity as counterweights that trumped statist assertions about the common good. The strength of Leon’s study lies in the painstaking research she conducted, not only in the well-known records of the American Eugenics Society and other eugenic advocacy groups, but also in the records of organizations such as the National Catholic Welfare Conference and the National Council of Catholic Men (NCCM). She found evidence that the men’s group first inadvertently overlooked the pending litigation in Buck v. Bell. Then, aware of the danger of awakening all too common 1920s anti-Catholic sentiments, NCCM quietly orchestrated the filing of a petition for rehearing after the decision in the case had been announced. Although its efforts to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision were ultimately unsuccessful, the petition contained the best and most thorough arguments made against the sterilization law. Despite decades of research on the Buck case by other scholars, Leon was first to discover the provenance of this final chapter of the litigation. Leon dedicates a full chapter to address one of the persistent questions in American sterilization history—although two thirds of the states had sterilization laws, why did similar legislation fail in the remainder of the states? Leon focuses on Ohio, telling the story of Catholic opposition to sterilization proposals there in the early 1930s. Her fine-grained analysis of behind-the-scenes lobbying by a prominent [End Page 179] Catholic bishop, Joseph Schrembs of Cleveland, in opposition to a sterilization bill is a masterful exercise in political and legislative history. Popular commentary on the history of eugenics in America often operates at the level of cartoon, with anti-Darwinian religionists of many stripes posed against the forces of scientific materialism. Leon’s book provides an antidote to that kind of ahistorical polemic by showing in textured detail how the Catholic hierarchy as well as the laity struggled with the many-faceted seductions of eugenics. Paul A. Lombardo Georgia State University Copyright © 2014 The Catholic University of America Press

A Shark-Proof Cage for Interactive Streaming Music Services? Testing the Limits of the DMCA Safe Harbor Immunity in the Era of Grooveshark

This issue brief centers on the pending litigation surrounding the popular and controversial online music streaming service, Grooveshark, a subsidiary of the unfortunately named Escape Media Group, Inc., as a case study for the applicability and reliability of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“The DMCA”) Safe Harbor Protections outlined in 17 U.S.C. § 512 (a) through (d) for Online Service Providers (“OSPs”) today.

Advance Pricing Agreements – A Big Step towards Certainty in the Uncertain World of Transfer Pricing

India recently introduced an advance pricing agreement (APA) programme marking a paradigm shift in the decade-old transfer pricing regime. It is hoped that APAs will, amongst others, eliminate the uncertainty associated with pending litigation, minimize risk, avoid the cost of disputes with the tax authorities right from the audit stage to the courts and so on. This article outlines the key features of the Indian APA programme, along with a discussion on global practices.

Audit Reports For Litigation Loss Contingencies

The relationship between the type of audit opinion received by 212 U.S. firms defending pending litigation and auditor, size, leverage, liquidity, and profitability was analyzed using hierarchical loglinear models. Using control and experimental groups which included only firms named as defendants in pending litigation, a model was identified which provided an excellent fit to the data and furnished evidence that size and audit firm alone are sufficient to describe the type of audit opinion received.

Fusion Versus Nonoperative Management for Chronic Low Back Pain

Systematic review. The objectives of this systematic review were to determine whether sociologic and demographic factors modify the effect of fusion versus nonoperative management in patients with chronic low back pain. Chronic low back pain is among the most common symptoms leading patients to seek medical care and presents significant challenges in treatment decision making. This is due to the wide array of pathologic conditions causing back pain, the multitude of patient variables (i.e., litigation, psychologic issues, social issues) that are thought to influence the perception of back pain, and the wide variation in treatment response. Sociodemographic factors are thought to play a role in pain perception and treatment response, though this has been poorly assessed in the literature. Systematic review of the literature, focused on randomized controlled trials to assess the heterogeneity of treatment effect of sociodemographic factors on the outcomes of fusion versus nonoperative care of the treatment of chronic low back pain. The only sociologic factors evaluated in randomized controlled trials adequate to assess heterogeneity of treatment effect are pending litigation, worker's compensation, sick leave, and heavy labor job type. Litigation patients, although thought to do poorly with treatment of chronic low back pain in general, responded more favorably to fusion than nonoperative care. Likewise, patients with lighter jobs and those patients who were not on sick leave did better with fusion than nonoperative care. No demographic factors were observed to respond more favorably to one treatment over the other. Sociodemographic factors are not well studied in the literature, but are assumed to affect treatment outcomes. After rigorous review, few studies held up to the standards required for defining the comparative treatment effect of these factors. Pending litigation may negatively impact outcomes of patients with chronic low back pain; however, those who underwent fusion had better outcomes than those with nonoperative management in two European studies. There is no evidence to suggest that sociodemographic factors alone should preclude surgery. Well-constructed prospective randomized studies with predefined subgroup analyses are required to further understand the impact of sociodemographic factors in the treatment of chronic low back pain. Sociodemographic factors should be considered when making treatment decisions for patients with chronic low back pain, but alone do not preclude fusion for chronic low back pain. Strength of recommendation: Weak.