William J. Woodward Jr.of Santa Clara has written Contraps, 66 Hastings Law Journal (2015). Here is the abstract: Forms that purport to govern consumer transactions are a central component of our modern consumer economy. They are routinely enforced because consumers are said to “manifest assent” to them, despite the fact that they are not read […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
by Jeff Sovern In Mohamed v. Uber, the federal district court for the Northern District of California said no. Opt-out clauses appear in contracts and give the contracting parties the right to opt-out of arbitration to resolve disputes within a certain period of time after entering into the contract, often thirty or sixty days (which […]
by Jeff Sovern I am working on a survey designed to determine consumer awareness of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act validation notice. The plan is to show respondents a debt collection letter that includes a standard validation notice, and then ask questions to see how aware they are of the notice and how they […]
Here. (HT: Matt Bruckner). Excerpt: After studying overdraft fees for more than three years, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is leaning against subjecting banks to tough new rules that would cap the size of charges or limit how frequently they can be imposed on consumers, said two people briefed on the agency’s work. More likely, […]
Sternlight has been writing about arbitration for years, and has some interesting comments about the Supreme Court's opinion last week in Sharif at the Indisputably blog. An excerpt: The Supreme Court’s most recent Article III decision, Wellness Int’l v. Sharif (2015), raises substantial questions as to the constitutional legitimacy of the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 […]
Here. An excerpt: The American Bankers Association, however, says its members aren’t ready. And it blames the vendors who supply the software and system upgrades needed for regulatory compliance. In a survey released earlier this month, 79 percent of responding banks said their vendors either had not verified a delivery date for the software updates […]
by Jeff Sovern Some years ago, I wrote an article in which I speculated that disclosing to consumers that consumers rarely redeem rebates might cause consumers to disregard rebate offers. Better-known scholars, like Ian Ayres and Oren Bar-Gill, have expressed similar thoughts. Well, a new study suggests that the contrary is true. Molly Mercer of DePaul's […]
by Jeff Sovern The University of Montana Law School (where my colleague and co-author of the St. John's Arbitration Study, Paul Kirgis, is heading to take up the deanship) has just announced a $10 million gift by alum Alexander "Zander" Blewett and his wife, Andy, part of which will fund a chair in consumer law […]