Category Archives: Uncategorized

Racial disparities in health care; a pitch for single-payer

As Vijay Das of Public Citizen and physician Adam Gaffney observed in a CNN op-ed this week: [A]cross the nation, black males in 2010 had a life expectancy almost five years lower than white males; black women could expect to live three years fewer than white females. In addition to inequalities in health outcomes (which have […]

CFPB Acts Against Mortgage Payment Company For Deceptive Ads

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau acted yesterday against Paymap Inc. and LoanCare, LLC for deceiving consumers with advertisements for a mortgage payment program that promised tens of thousands of dollars in interest savings from more frequent mortgage payments. Under the terms of the orders, Paymap will return $33.4 million in fees to consumers and pay […]

Affirming class certification, Seventh Circuit refuses to expand “ascertainability”

We've covered numerous times the rise of a heightened "ascertainability" requirement in the Third Circuit. (See, for instance, here, for a summary and a recent development. Brief summary: ascertainability is the court-developed notion that a class must show an administratively feasible means of identifying class members; the test is particularly strict and plaintiff-unfriendly in the Third […]

Should Ninth Circuit Abolish the Doctrine of Initial Interest Confusion?

by Paul Alan Levy     A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about a Ninth Circuit decision, Multi Time Machine v. Amazon.com, that undid a great deal of progress made in that court undoing the adverse effects of that Court's decision in Brookfield Communications v. West Coast Video; last week, I noted that Amazon had sought […]

Judge rejects GM’s request for broad protective order in litigation over defective ignition switches

The judge rejected a motion for a broad protective order but issued a narrower one. Reuters reports: A federal judge overseeing litigation over multiple General Motors recalls last year will allow plaintiffs' lawyers to share some nonconfidential material gathered during discovery, rejecting the company's bid to broadly ban public pretrial dissemination of the material. On […]

Marketplace morning report on NPR: Chipotle facing wage/hour lawsuits

After discussing various cases against Chipotle based on misclassification and off-the-clock work, the story goes on to claim that private wage/hour enforcement is rising in general. The reaction of the industry representative interviewed for the story is telling: “Plaintiffs’ attorneys, the employees’ attorneys, became aware that this was sort of lucrative ground for them to […]

More on the Fiat Chrysler recalls – control problems and explosions

Brian posted earlier this morning about cyber-security concerns leading to some of the recalls. Two other notable aspects of today's recall and $105 million fine, the largest in U.S. history, are: -The company will offer to buy back up to half a million Dodge Ram pickups because of suspension problems that can result in a […]