New report on judges in “business courts”

A new report from the The People’s Parity Project examines the backgrounds of judges on state “business courts.” Sixty-three percent of Americans live in a state with a business court. Although business courts are intended to hear cases between businesses, a significant number of states hear cases that include workers and consumers, typically relating to […]

The FTC’s inadequate Kochava proposed privacy settlement

Back in 2022, the FTC accused Kochava of engaging in unfair practices because it sold vast amounts of data obtained from smart phones, including geolocation data (where the phones were); profiles of consumers, including their marital status, ethnicity, gender identity, political association, employment; what phone apps they had and how much time they spent on […]

Blasie paper on the legal system’s foundational delusion: that ordinary people can understand the laws and legal documents that govern them

Michael Blasie of Seattle has written Information Poverty and the Right to Understand. Here is the abstract: Legal systems around the world, and particularly in the United States, rest on a foundational delusion: that ordinary people can understand the laws and legal documents that govern them. Despite the growing focus on “access to justice,” most […]

Second Circuit holds NY’s interest-on-escrow law preempted (again)

In an opinion issued yesterday in Cantero v. Bank of America, the Second Circuit held that New York’s law requiring 2% interest payments on mortgage escrow accounts is preempted under the National Bank Act, because it “significantly interferes” with federal law, which allows federally chartered national banks to offer mortgage-escrow accounts without requiring them to […]

Survey finds 48% of Americans would be embarrassed to say they signed a contract without reading it.

The survey was conducted by the Goldberg Law Group. Only 16% of Americans say they read every word of a contract. I very much doubt it’s even that high. Almost certainly some of the people who said they read every word were too embarrassed to say they didn’t.  For example, when I polled consumer financial […]

Divided 11th Circuit Finds Browsewrap Arbitration Agreement Unenforceable

The last few years have had several decisions from state and federal courts of appeals addressing when “clickwrap” or “browsewrap” arbitration agreements are enforceable. “A clickwrap agreement requires a user to check a box or click a button to acknowledge acceptance of the agreement’s terms and conditions,” and “a browsewrap agreement contains hyperlinked terms, and […]