Author Archives: Brian Wolfman

Do lawyers like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau?

by Brian Wolfman Well at least the debt-collection lawyers don't, as explained in this article by Jenna Greene. According to the incoming head of the debt-collection lawyers' trade group, the CFPB is "the bane of our existence." Here is an except from Greene's article: When scores of debt-collection lawyers descend on Washington this week for […]

Should parents be held liable for the consequences of failing to have their kids vaccinated?

Vaccinations generally benefit society. If kids are not vaccinated because their parents won't allow it, the kids may become ill as a result (of course), and the kids may also infect other people. Should parents be held liable for injuries to others caused by exposure to their unvaccinated kids? Liability would not only compensate the […]

Margaret Kwoka’s new article on the Freedom of Information Act

Former Freedom of Information Act litigator and now law prof Margaret Kwoka has been writing articles on the Act. Read Margaret's most recent: Unconstrained Deference, Chenery, and FOIA. Here's the abstract: Litigation fails adequately to check agency secrecy decisions under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). To vindicate the public’s right to know what its […]

9th circuit follows Justice Kagan’s dissent in Genesis HealthCare

by Brian Wolfman Last April, the Supreme Court decided Genesis HealthCare v. Symczyk, which held that an opt-in collective action brought under the Fair Labor Standard Act was moot on the assumption that an unaccepted offer from the defendant to the lead plaintiff of "complete relief" mooted the lead plaintiff's individual claim. (The Court made […]

More on the 3rd circuit’s decision in Carrera

by Brian Wolfman As we've explained in a series of recent posts, in Carrera v. Bayer, the Third Circuit reversed a grant of class certification on the ground that the class wasn't "ascertainable." Among other things, the panel said that the class of purchasers of an over-the-counter weight-loss product had not shown that it would be […]

The CFPB goes after another debt settlement services company (and lawyers too)

As the Blog of the Legal Times explains: Continuing its crackdown on companies that provide debt settlement services, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today announced that a payment processing company will pay $1.376 million to settle allegations that it collected illegal up-front fees from consumers. The CFPB said Tacoma, Wash.-based Meracord LLC helped debt-relief service […]

Do small-claims class actions deter corporate illegality?

That's the question addressed by law professor Linda Simard in her article A View from Within the Fortune 500: An Empirical Study of Negative Value Class Actions and Deterrence. Here is the abstract: This paper takes a look inside the Fortune 500 to analyze the deterrent effect of negative value class actions. The study focuses […]