Yesterday, in what otherwise might have been a garden-variety opinion enforcing an arbitration agreement, Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit had some striking things to say about arbitration. His opinion sarcastically pooh-poohed the idea that arbitration agreements are "darlings" of the law and went on to question whether […]
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Rebecca Tushnet’s blog calls attention to a bizarre cybersquatting complaint that was recently filed in the Northern District of California by ThermoLife, an Arizona company that touts its dietary supplements as providing “the purest, most powerful and innovative products” using the trademark “Muscle Beach.” The trademark claims are utter nonsense, but the proceeding raises a […]
The California Supreme Court has revived a series of antitrust suits against drug manufacturers Bayer and Barr Laboratories. The cases stem from an agreement between brand-name manufacturer Bayer and generic manufacturer Barr, under which Bayer agreed to pay Barr $398.1 million in exchange for Barr postponing the sale of the generic version of Bayer’s antibiotic […]
Ruling in a case brought by the nation’s largest flight attendant union, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled on Friday that the Federal Aviation Administration acted within its authority when it decided, in 2013, to allow airline passengers to use cellphone and other electronics during takeoffs and landings. The Association of […]
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion on Friday holding that private attorneys under contract with the Ohio attorney general’s office to collect debts owed to the state improperly used the office’s letterhead to scare debtors into paying. The court held that use of the letterhead of the Ohio attorney general’s office was […]
A big victory for consumers, as the New York Times explained late last week: Two of the nation’s biggest banks will finally put to rest the zombies of consumer debt — bills that are still alive on credit reports although legally eliminated in bankruptcy — potentially providing relief to more than a million Americans. Bank […]
In a lawsuit filed today against the Food and Drug Administration, the drug manufacturer Amarin Pharma claims that the FDA's bar on drug companies marketing their products for uses that have not been approved by the FDA violates the company's right to free speech. In this case, not only is the use unapproved, but the […]
Last week, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Rep. Maxine Waters of California introduced the Court Legal Access and Student Support (CLASS) Act of 2015, which would eliminate forced arbitration clauses and class-action bans from college enrollment contracts. This protection, if enacted, would particularly timely in light of all the schools that have been discovered […]
The FBI has announced it will be submitting to greater oversight (i.e., seeking warrants for) its practice of scanning cell phone signals from airplanes to sweep up information about thousands of individuals. The detailed Wall St. Journal story on this is behind a paywall, so here's an accessible report.
In the first federal appellate ruling on the issue, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled that the federal law authorizing government record collection does not cover the bulk collection of Americans' metadata. (The collection program, you'll recall, was revealed as a result of the leaks by Edward Snowden). The ruling […]