As the people of Baltimore recover from this week's rioting and try to make sense of the shocking event that sparked it, 538.com reflects on some relevant statistics about economic conditions in Baltimore: -The median income for African-American households: $33,000 (white households make nearly double that amount). -The unemploment rate for African-American men 20 to […]
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In a brief filed in the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, we have asked the Court to enforce the Supreme Court’s rule forbidding temporary injunctions to protect the reputation of a business against allegedly defamatory criticisms. The facts of the case show the wisdom of the rule. How the Appeal Came About In the fall […]
We discussed previously a "debt strike" launched by students of the for-profit chain Corinthian Colleges, which faces multiple legal actions from state and federal regulators over claims that it misled students about job prospects and graduation rates (see our prior discussion about one such action here). Now the company is closing its schools, reports the […]
Today the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, a Fair Credit Reporting Act claim about an incorrect report. Spokeo, a company that publishes information about people online, challenged the plaintiff's standing to proceed in the absence of concrete harm flowing from the inaccurate report of facts about the plaintiff. The plaintiff, Robins, […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today issued its third Snapshot of Complaints Received from Servicemembers, Veterans and their Families. The report details the data and trends from consumer complaints received by the CFPB from members of the military and their families since July 2011. Points highlighted by the CFPB include: Debt collection complaints have continued […]
by Paul Alan Levy Over the past couple of decades, federal courts have a uniform answer to the question whether state anti-SLAPP statutes applied when state law claims were pursued in federal court. Anti-SLAPP statutes give the defendants in cases brought over the exercise of free speech rights on matters of public interest, and certain […]
We've discussed before some of the troubling aspects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Here's another one: the fact it's being negotiated in secret. As a Times op-ed argues, [T]he secrecy of trade negotiations does not just hide information from the public. It creates a funnel where powerful interests congregate, absent the checks, balances and necessary hurdles […]
In a ruling that seems too obvious to have been the subject of debate (though it was), the Sixth Circuit held this week that Title VII's protection against being subject to discrimination "because [the employee] opposed . . . an unlawful employment practice,” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a), covers a worker who resists sexual harassment by […]
As the New York Times reports today, Deutsche Bank will pay a $2.5 billion penalty to United States and British authorities to settle accusations that it helped manipulate the benchmarks used to set interest rates on trillions of dollars in mortgages, student loans, credit cards and other debt, officials said on Thursday. The rate that […]
"It's Time to Regulate E-Cigarettes" is the title of an op-ed in today's New York Times by former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler and Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids President Matt Myers. Noting that "youth e-cigarette use tripled in just one year, surpassing the use of traditional cigarettes," the writers express concern that "E-cigarettes […]