That's a key issue addressed by law prof Alexandra Lahav in Mass Tort Class Actions – Past, Present, and Future. Here is the abstract: The judicial experiment with mass tort class actions was an anemic one, albeit somewhat spectacular in a few cases that have captured the academic and professional imagination. This Essay explains that the […]
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According to the Department of Education, there's about $1.4 trillion in outstanding U.S. student loan debt, $137 billion of which is in default (with 1.1 million students going into default in 2016 alone). No long-term solutions are on the horizon. Meanwhile, as Danielle Douglas-Gabrielle explains in this article,"thousands of Virginia students [are] caught in a […]
The New York Times has gotten a hold of a draft of the federal government's climate science special report. The draft report is slated to be part of the National Climate Assessment, which is required by Congress every 4 years. The draft report represents the collective judgment of scientists from, among other places, 13 federal agencies. […]
From the New York Times: When you wash your hair, clean or moisturize your skin, polish your nails, or put on makeup, deodorant or sunscreen, do you ever think about whether the product you’re using may do more harm than good? Maybe you should. Thanks to a lack of federal regulations, the watchword for consumers […]
Banks and credit unions may give their customers the option of overdraft "protection," which allows the customer to overdraw when (for instance) using a debit card in exchange for paying a overdraft fee. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is concerned that the fees can burden consumers and wants to ensure that overdraft fees are adequately […]
The Washington Post reports: The heat on Wells Fargo over its auto lending business has intensified, with customers filing at least three lawsuits, politicians calling for hearings and a bank regulator issuing a subpoena for records. Wells Fargo, still trying to recover from a fake accounts scandal, said last week that roughly 570,000 customers were […]
Lots of editorials and op-eds on consumer issues lately. In The Hill today: Congress this summer is considering whether to pass legislation that would fundamentally damage the ability of the Federal Trade Commission to protect consumers from pyramid schemes. As one of the commissioners of the FTC, I have a much different view. Americans lose […]
The Chicago Sun-Times urges "Congress should side with consumers, not with what it says in the fine print, and abandon its efforts to repeal the rule." Fine print has never been the friend of consumers, and in recent years the perils have escalated as financial institutions have drawn up clauses that deny customers effective redress […]
The New York Times reports that the Food and Drug Administration has warned Congress that it is frequently finding contamination, illegal ingredients and other problems in the soaring quantities of imported cosmetics, and that it has limited resources to inspect the shipments. The warning was part of a letter sent in late June to a […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today issued a bulletin warning companies about tricking consumers into expensive pay-by-phone fees. The CFPB is concerned about companies potentially misleading consumers about the purpose and amount of certain pay-by-phone fees or keeping them in the dark about much cheaper payment options. The bulletin also reviews guidelines to help consumer […]