Author Archives: Brian Wolfman

Distracted driving kills thousands of people every year

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, more than 3100 people were killed in 2020 alone because drivers were distracted. A significant percentage of the problem is caused by cell-phone use while driving. We all see people texting while driving. Sending or reading a text can take the driver's eyes off the road for […]

Arbitration win for consumer plaintiff in the Supreme Court

A consumer plaintiff notched a rare Supreme Court win in a Federal Arbitration Act decision this morning, Morgan v. Sundance Inc. The first three paragraphs of Justice Kagan's unanimous opinion sum things up nicely: When a party who has agreed to arbitrate a dispute instead brings a lawsuit, the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) entitles the […]

Attend a panel discussion on the FTC’s monetary authority in the wake of the Supreme Court’s AMG decision

Join the Washington D.C. ACS Lawyer Chapter for a discussion on the Supreme Court's decision in AMG Capital v. FTC. The panel discussion — a Zoom webinar — is on Thursday, May 26, 2022 from 12:30PM – 1:30PM ET. Register here. The panelists will discuss the background of the case, it's impact on the agency, […]

Adam Levitin: “The Miscalculations Underlying Miller & Zywicki’s Payday Loan Paper”

Over at Credit Slips, law prof Adam Levitin has posted The Miscalculations Underlying Miller & Zywicki’s Payday Loan Paper. The beginning of Levitin’s post will give you a sense of it: Earlier this month Professors Todd Zywicki and Thomas Miller, Jr. wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal arguing against payday loan regulation, based […]

Diversity at the Federal Reserve is related to lending practices

Read Board Diversity Matters: An Empirical Assessment of Community Lending at Federal Reserve by profs Brian Feinstein, Peter Conti-Brown, and Kaleb Nygaard. Here is the abstract: This working paper shows that the increased presence of minority directors on the twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks — the quasi-governmental entities responsible for evaluating many commercial banks’ lending […]

Ninth Circuit says BMW can’t force arbitration based on arbitration clause in purchase agreement between the consumer and the car dealership

Here's the first paragraph of yesterday's decision in Ngo v. BMW North America In 2012, Kim Ngo bought a new BMW 535i sedan from Peter Pan Motors, Inc, a car dealership. Because the dealership financed Ngo’s purchase, they entered into a purchase agreement which contained an arbitration clause. As a result of alleged defects with […]

Article on Article III standing, Spokeo, and TransUnion

Law prof Elizabeth Earle Beske has written “Charting a Course Past Spokeo and TransUnion.” Here’s the abstract: The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez has dramatically upended standing doctrine, apparently out of concern that any other move will invite congressional manipulation and give rise to even greater evils. The Court has done […]