Emily Houh and Kristin Kalsem, both of Cincinnati, have written It's Critical: Legal Participatory Action Research, forthcoming in 18 Michigan Journal of Race & Law. Here's the abstract: The ongoing community-based research project that we describe in this article will contribute, we hope, to an understanding of the fringe economy by offering insights into what […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
by Jeff Sovern In the Detroit News. Professor Joseph refers to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as "purposefully-misnamed," as if members of Congress sat around saying "let's create an agency that will hurt consumers but give it a name that suggests it will protect them." So what does he think is wrong with the Bureau? […]
Wayne Barnes of Texas A&M has wrtiten Social Media and the Rise in Consumer Bargaining Power,14 U. Pa. J. Bus. L. 661 (2012). Here's the abstract: Consumers are constantly entering into form contracts, both offline and online. They do not read most of the terms, but the duty to read says the contracts are nevertheless […]
Robert C. Hockett of Cornell and John Vlahoplus of Mortgage Resolution Partners have written A Federalist Blessing in Disguise: From National Inaction to Local Action on Underwater Mortgages, 7 Harvard Law & Policy Review (2013). Here is the abstract: While it is widely recognized that the mortgage debt overhang left by the housing price bubble […]
by Jeff Sovern I frequently post links to scholars' articles on consumer law issues, including pieces by George Mason's Todd J. Zywicki, like this one. The Nation recently published a piece reporting on professors who also work for Wall Street-funded operations without disclosing that in, as The Nation put it, their "university profile, CV, byline […]
Here. An interesting report on a third circuit case on whether consumers can revoke their consent to receive automated calls. The case arose in the debt collection context and given the steep penalties under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act–$500 per call and $1500 for willful violations–could lead to a lot of litigation.
Remember how car dealers fought to avoid being subject to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's jurisdiction, and won? It turns out that the dealers are still experiencing pressure to comply with the Bureau's edicts. From Carter Dougherty's story: Under pressure from the agency, large banks that routinely buy auto loans have been reviewing records to […]
Charles L. Knapp of Hastings has written Is There a 'Duty to Read'? in Revisiting the Contracts Scholarship of Stewart Macaulay: On the Empirical and the Lyrical 315 (Jean Braucher, John Kidwell, & William C. Whitford eds. 2013). Here's the abstract: The notion that there is in general contract law a “duty to read” persists in […]
Daniel B. Heidtke, Jessica Stewart and Spencer Weber Waller, all of Loyola of Chicago's School of Law and its Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies have written The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991: Adapting Consumer Protection to Changing Technology. Here is the abstract: In the late 1980’s, spurred on by advances in technology, the telemarketing industry […]
Yesterday I blogged about a Times report on medical debt. Today the Times published an editorial, Alarming Abuses of Medical Credit Cards, as well as some letters on the matter.