Author Archives: Brian Wolfman

Consumer Product Safety Commission issues guidance on court secrecy

Hat tip to Arthur Bryant who tells us that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a guidance urging judges and litigants to ensure that every protective order and agreement in litigation “specifically allow for disclosure” to the “CPSC and other government public health and safety agencies.” The CPSC guidance is here. Arthur has […]

Latest FDA information on drug safety and drug labeling changes

The Food and Drug Administration has announced that it "is now making it easier and faster for health care professionals and patients to get the most up-to-date drug safety information on the more than 18,000 drugs available on our website. Our improved Drug Safety Labeling Changes Program enables FDA to post the latest safety information […]

RICO suit filed by law firm against lawyers who regularly file class-action objections

The law firm Edelson PC has filed a RICO suit against a bunch of lawyers and law firms that regularly represent objectors to class-action settlements. The complaint, filed in federal district court in Chicago, is worth a look. Basically, it alleges that the defendant lawyers and law firms are using frivolous objections (and frivolous appeals from trial-court approvals […]

Watch this video on the safety, cyber-security, and privacy of self-driving (and partially self-driving) vehicles

Click here or on the embedded video below to watch Prof. Christopher Yoo and federal transportation policy journalist Stephanie Beasley discuss the safety, cyber-security, and privacy of self-driving and other automated vehicles. Though there are few completely self-driving cars on the road, many cars today have some autonomous features and so pose some of the same safety, cyber-security, […]

Trying to protect the health of NFL players

We've posted several times about the head-injury settlement between NFL players and the NFL. Go here for instance. That settlement was approved over class members' objections by a federal district court in Philadelphia and by a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Petitions for a writ of certiorari are pending (go here and here), […]

The future (or not) of the CFPB’s arbitration rule

Law prof David Noll has written The CFPB's Arbitration Rule: The Road Ahead. Here is the abstract: In May 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced that it intended to exercise its authority under the Dodd-Frank Act to bar consumer financial companies from invoking pre-dispute arbitration agreements to block consumer class actions. This comment considers the […]

Federal court in Texas preliminarily enjoins new Obama Administration overtime rule

We have blogged several times (for instance, here and here) about the new U.S. Labor Department rule that significantly raises the pay threshold that triggers exceptions to the general rule that workers must be paid 1.5 times their ordinary pay for every hour they work over 40 per week. In plain English, that means overtime pay for […]