The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit yesterday held that the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) does not preempt Indiana’s state robocall ban. The TCPA regulates various telemarketing behavior and regulates the use of autodialers. The federal regulations allow robocalls for non-commercial purposes, but the Indiana law bans all robocalls made without […]
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by Paul Alan Levy In response to aggressive reporting on the blog Digital Music News about the contract terms that Apple has imposed on independent labels that lack the economic clout to negotiate their own specific deals regarding iTunes Radio, Apple sent a DMCA takedown notice to Scribd, where the blog had posted the contract […]
Big news with implications for many aspects of the law. The changes eliminate filibusters on most nominees, but preserve the filibuster for Supreme Court picks and legislation. Politico has the story.
The CFPB yesterday announced an enforcement action against payday lender Cash America International Inc. According to the CFPB's press release, Cash America will pay up to $14 million in refunds to consumers for robo-signing court documents in debt collection lawsuits, and will pay a $5 million fine for the robo-sgning and for destroying records in […]
by Paul Alan Levy One of the sweetest things that Public Citizen does each year is recognize a long-time public interest staffer whose work is vital to that staffer's organization, but whose work is sufficiently behind-the-scenes that he or she receives no public recognition. The award is named for Phyllis McCarthy, who started working for […]
Dietary supplements often are taken for their drug-like effects, but, unlike drugs, they are subject to very little federal regulation because they are (supposed to be) made solely from "natural" substances. So, with that in mind, read this article by Alison Young. Here's an excerpt: For the second time in recent weeks, scientists have found […]
Implementing the settlement over its "Sponsoned Stories" program — to which Public Citizen objected in May and has now appealed this fall — Facebook has changed its privacy program to make more clear to users when it will use their images in advertising. As the Times put it, "If you post something on Facebook, let […]
The Supreme Court has granted review in yet another class action, and this one has large implications for the future of securities-fraud litigation. In Haliburton v. Erica P. John Fund, the Court will decide whether to overrule or substantially modify the rule in Basic, Inc. v. Levinson (1988), which adopted the "fraud-on-the-market" theory of reliance […]
Today Public Citizen filed the opening brief in an appeal on behalf of a putative class of Applebee's workers throughout New York State. The workers sued their employer, T.L. Cannon, owner and operator of 53 Applebee's locations in New York, claiming various wage violations, including that the employer trained its supervisors and managers to manipulate […]
Linda Greenhouse had this interesting piece in the New York Times yesterday, about Chief Justice Roberts's "invitation" to cases challenging cy pres awards, as she describes the Chief Justice's statement (at p. 24 of the pdf) last week concerning the denial of the petiton for certiorari in Marek v. Lane–the cert petition about the cy […]