USA Discounters, reports the Washington Post in conjunction with ProPublica, is a retailer that takes advantage of service members' transience and locks them into cycle of debt using a venue-selection clause in their contracts that permits the business to litigate against customers in southeastern Virginia, no matter where in the world those customers are stationed. […]
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In 2009, Congress for the first time gave the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco. In April 2014, the agency proposed to regulate e-cigarettes and similar products. In a short paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association entitled E-Cigarettes, Vaping, and Youth, Larry Gostin and Aliza Glasner have provided their views on […]
by Brian Wolfman Take a close look at this story about a new CNN poll. The first thing you see is this: So, it looks like 59% oppose the ACA and only 40% support it. If you are an ACA supporter that doesn't sound very good, though it's up from December 2013, when the numbers […]
Remember the 80-20 rule (also known as the medical loss ratio rule)? That's the Affordable Care Act rule that generally requires health insurers to spend 80% or more on hospitals, docs, prescription drugs, and the like (that is, actual health care) — and not administrative expenses and advertising. The idea is to encourage insurers to […]
According to The Hill, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced Wednesday they are taking action against dozens of companies that they allege falsely promised to help distressed homeowners prevent foreclosure and lower their monthly payments. Several state regulators joined the two federal agencies in suing more than 40 law […]
We’ve covered on the blog several examples of troubling non-disparagement clauses preventing consumers from speaking out about their bad experiences with businesses (for instance, see here and here). From our experience, these seem to be cropping up more and more. I’m pleased to report on a counterexample. The company Madwire Media, a marketing firm, used […]
From Food Safety News: Oregon, Washington and Vermont have filed lawsuits against the makers of the energy drink 5-Hour Energy for making “deceptive” marketing claims. More states are expected to follow. …. The suits take issue with claims about what 5-Hour Energy actually does, whether consumers experience a “crash,” whether it’s recommended by doctors and […]
Several years ago, an attorney named James Bormes paid a case filing fee via pay.gov, which the federal courts use to facilitate electronic payments. He received an email receipt that included both the last four digits of his credit card’s number and the card’s expiration date. Bormes sued seeking damages under the Fair Credit Reporting […]
A recent study by Myungho Paik, Bernard Black, and David Hyman finds a significant downward effect from state-law medical-malpractice caps on claim rates and payouts. Here is the abstract: We study the effect of damage caps adopted in the 1990s and 2000s on medical malpractice claim rates and payouts. Prior studies found some evidence that […]
A report issued today by Pennsylvania's auditor general revealed the troubling (if not necessarily surprising) degree to which that state's Department of Environmental Protection has been outmatched by the pace of gas drilling in the state. The report, covering the period 2009-12, portrays a department that is both underresourced and slow or even unwilling to […]