We have discussed the increasing use by companies of non-disparagement clauses in take-it-or-leave-it consumer contracts, where the consumer "agrees" not to say anything critical of a company from which it buys something Go, for instance, here, discussing the use of these clauses in mortgage loan-modification contracts. And we have discussed repeatedly (go, for instance, here […]
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Mortgage servicers increasingly are including non-disparagement clauses in loan modification agreements, including ordinary loan modifications (i.e., those that are not negotiated in settlement of litigation). In at least one instance, Ocwen, the largest non-bank servicer of mortgages in the U.S. thanks to a number of acquisitions in recent years, sought to impose a non-disparagement provision […]
…is the catchy title of an NPR reporting series airing this week about the rise of new "debtors' prisons" as a result of state and local court practices across the country. According to the written summary of the story, everyday, people go to jail because they failed to pay their court debts. In Benton County, […]
According to the FTC, a Houston-based debt collection company called Goldman Schwartz, Inc., used insults, lies, and false threats of imprisonment to collect on payday loans. Under a settlement announced this week, the company’s owner will surrender his assets, approximately $550,000, to pay restitution to consumers who were charged unauthorized fees. The settlement also permanently […]
by Paul Alan Levy In the discussion of yesterday’s decision rejecting a lawsuit by the DC Council against Mayor Vincent Gray, I found a procedural puzzlement. The City Council sued Gray for a declaratory judgment and an injunction compelling him to comply with the Local Budget Autonomy Act; Gray counterclaimed for a declaratory judgment that […]
by Paul Alan Levy I wrote recently about a letter from an HHS lawyer, Dale Berkley, that appeared to threaten a blogger with a lawsuit for defamation because the blogger had published a mock interview with a an HHS official which, the demand letter said, could have misled readers into believing that the official had […]
by Paul Alan Levy The last time I blogged about Med Express, the eBay seller that brought a defamation suit against two eBay customers for leaving truthful and mildly critical feedback, then apologized and blamed its lawyer for filing a different lawsuit from the one it wanted to file, we had just gone to trial […]
That's the topic of The Deterrent Effect of Tort Law: Evidence from Medical Malpractice Reform by profs Zenon Zabinski and Bernard Black. Here is the abstract: A principal goal of tort law is to deter negligent behavior, but there is limited empirical evidence on whether it does so. We study that question for medical malpractice […]
As the Washington Post reports, a proposal pending before the Senate would require the IRS to turn unpaid tax bills over to private debt collectors. The proposal would, in the Post's words, "reviv[e] a program that has previously led to complaints of harassment and has not saved taxpayers money." The leading proponent is Democrat Chuck […]
Here. A lot of it is about Omri Ben-Shahar's and Carl Schneider's new book, More Than You Wanted to Know: The Failure of Mandated Disclosure. I'm still reading the book's introduction, but so far it looks very good.