A Los Angeles ordinance requires hotel and motel operators to collect information from their guests — including the guest's name and address, number of people in the party, arrival and departure dates, room number, vehicle information, and more — and authorizes law enforcement to inspect this information without a warrant. The Ninth Circuit ruled that […]
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The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports today: Three widely cited state studies of air emissions at Marcellus Shale gas development sites in Pennsylvania omit measurements of key air toxics and calculate the health risks of just two of more than two dozen pollutants. State regulators and the shale gas drilling industry over the past four years have […]
by Jeff Sovern Here. Disclosure: the story quotes me and discusses my article on cooling-off periods.
by Paul Alan Levy In the short space of a few days, the House and Senate of the Pennsylvania legislature have passed a bill allowing judges to issue injunctions, or grant any other “appropriate relief” if there is “conduct” by a criminal “offender” that “perpetuates the continuing effect of the crime […]
by Paul Alan Levy Last February, I discussed on this blog our appeal on behalf of an Alabama law firm and about a hundred of their clients who were subjected to an exceptionally broad gag order that forbade them from saying anything publicly or even privately about an extermination company that they had sued for […]
We've recommended before the insightful investigative journalism of Jake Halpern on the debt collection industry (see here for a post earlier this month and here for a story from 2010). Last week, Halpern appeared on Fresh Air to discuss his new book, Bad Paper: Chasing Debt from Wall Street to the Underworld. Eye opening and […]
A study released today reports on class actions that have "helped victims of corporate law-breaking and led to changes in corporate behavior that protect us all from many types of illegal conduct." Prepared by the Center for Justice and Democracy, the study looks at more than 150 class actions that have been litigated since 2005 […]
Yesterday, the Washington Post endorsed Brian Frosh for Attorney General of Maryland. Among his opponents' weaknesses, according to the Post, is that he "wants to promote arbitration as an alternative to consumers suing businesses." On the other side of the issue, a congressional candidate in Virginia (running for an open seat in the D.C. suburb […]
The legalization of marijunana creates economic winners and losers. One loser is the private prison industry, which is lobbying against legalization, as explained in this article by Kendall Bentsen.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced yesterday action against M&T Bank for deceptively advertising free checking accounts. As explained in the CFPB press release: The CFPB found that M&T lured in consumers with promises of “no strings attached” free checking, without disclosing key eligibility requirements. When consumers failed to meet the requirements, M&T automatically […]