Last year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA) oversaw nearly 900 vehicle safety recalls affecting 51 million U.S. cars. Many recalled cars must be fixed to eliminate or mitigate the safety concern. So, for the recall system work, the consumer must, first, know that the vehicle is the subject of a recall. (The consumer should […]
Author Archives: Brian Wolfman
Law prof Elizabeth Chamblee Burch and Federal Judicial Center senior researcher Margaret Williams have written Repeat Players in Multidistrict Litigation: The Social Network. Their research found based on limited data "reason to be concerned" that plaintiffs are being shortchanged at the expense of plaintiffs' lawyers and defendants. Here is the abstract: To promote pretrial efficiency, the […]
Prof. Ryan Rebe has written Analyzing the Link between Dollars and Decisions: A Multi-State Study of Campaign Contributions and Judicial Decision Making. Here is the abstract: This article examines the causal connection between attorney contributions and judicial decisions in elective states. The results show that contributions are a significant predictor of appellant success in state supreme […]
That's the headline of this article by Danielle Douglas-Gabrielle. Here's an excerpt: Researchers [at Washington Center for Equitable Growth] found that a correlation between the share of minorities in a Zip code and loan delinquency rates is highest for people in the middle of the income distribution. Among Zip codes with a median income of around […]
President Obama's recently proposed fiscal-year 2017 budget includes two new healthcare proposals: (1) requiring drug companies to disclose various production costs for specific drugs, including research and development costs; and (2) and allowing the HHS Secretary to negotiate with drug companies on certain high-cost drug prices under Medicare Part D. Read about these proposals, and […]
Law professor Robert Rabin has written Intangible Damages in American Tort Law: A Roadmap. Here is the abstract: This paper is meant to provide a succinct roadmap to the many pathways taken in providing recovery for intangible harm in tort. The paper was initially prepared for a comparative law conference, and in that setting, I assumed […]
This article by Scott Graham explains that Uber has settled a couple cases about the way it advertises its $1-$2 so-called "safe ride" fee. Here are some excerpts: The on-demand ride service Uber Technologies Inc. has agreed to pay $28.5 million to settle two San Francisco class actions over the way it advertises its services. Uber announced […]
According to this Gallup report, the U.S. obesity rate has hit a new high — 28% — up 2.5 percentage points since just 2008. Here are some excerpts from the report: In addition to the 28.0% who are obese, another 35.6% of adults are classified as overweight, with 34.6% normal weight and 1.8% underweight, as reported […]
A recent Public Citizen report maintains that the idea of the "no-injury" class action is a fiction. After all, wrongful corporate conduct may be harmful to consumers, and worthy of deterrence, even when it is difficult for many individuals to quantify the particular harms to them. Many state and federal consumer-protection laws authorize consumers to sue […]
Do expiration (or "sell by") dates on packaged/bottled foods protect consumers' health and safety, or do they just encourage consumers to throw out perfectly good food (and then buy more)? Or is the answer somewhere in between? In September 2013, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic published The Dating […]