by Ted Mermin (Executive Director, Public Good Law Center), guest blogger As Scott Michelman's earlier post explained, the new California law barring nondisparagement clauses in consumer contracts promises to restrain a pernicious practice before it spreads widely. That in itself is a significant victory well worth celebrating. But here's hoping (and suggesting) that the new law also serve as […]
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Watch here, laugh and enjoy. (And learn.) (Note to sensitive readers: in addition to some profanity, there's a rather detailed — but hilarious — digression regarding President Lyndon Johnson's difficulty fitting his private parts into his pants.) (Note to history buffs: this is worth watching for the LBJ bit alone.)
by Jeff Sovern I am partial to Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels. I buy the audio books and listen to them while driving, doing mindless chores, etc. In the latest, Personal, Reacher and a companion are discussing the activities of a British gang of criminals, and the sentence quoted above appears. Interesting to see that the […]
by Paul Alan Levy In two rulings in late August, the Texas Supreme Court addressed significant issues of free speech arising in defamation cases brought by companies against their critics – the availability of injunctive remedies, and the proper procedure for discovery to identify potential defamation defendants who spoke anonymously. The court staked out somewhat […]
…is the title of this expose (from personal experience), in Vox. A telling passage: In most cases like this [i.e. attempting to collect a deceased's debt from his family], the family is not liable for the debts, something we informed them of — that is, if they asked. But if a family without an estate […]
by Paul Alan Levy A dozen years ago, when I had just made the transition from doing union democracy law to cyberlaw, I took on the representation of an IT professional named Hank Mishkoff who modeled his work by creating a web site praising a shopping mall that was being built near his home, using […]
As explained in this article by Daniel Fisher, Seventh Circuit judge Richard Posner recently had some tough questions for proponents of a class-action settlement in which the plaintiff-consumers got coupons (that's right, $10 coupons to purchase the defendant's products!) and the plaintiffs’ lawyers got cash (a million bucks in fees). That's nothing new — that's […]
We've written extensively about the problem of non-disparagement clauses in consumer contracts, and we've discussed the possibility of a legislative fix in California, proposed by former Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez. Public Citizen has supported and assisted in this and other ongoing legislative efforts to address the problem. I'm pleased to report today that the […]
Late last week, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal of a class action against Yelp by four local merchants who claimed that Yelp employees were themselves writing false and defamatory reviews, and removing positive reviews, to coerce the merchants into buying the advertising that provides Yelp with its main source […]
Second Circuit judge Guido Calabresi has written A Broader View of the Cathedral: The Significance of the Liability Rule, Correcting a Misapprehension. Here is the abstract: Recent years have seen a resurgence of Torts viewed as a purely private legal arrangement: whether described in terms of compensatory justice — the right of an injured party […]