Category Archives: Uncategorized

Is there “take-home” liability for an employer’s negligence in causing transmission of Covid-19 (as there is sometimes in the asbestos context)?

That's the question addressed in Employer Liability for 'Take-Home' COVID-19 by Mark Rothstein and Julia Irzyk (forthcoming in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics). Here is the abstract: Workplace exposure to SARS-CoV-2 has been a source of morbidity and mortality from COVID-19, especially for “essential workers,” such as those employed in health care and […]

Judge Strikes Down D.C.’s Moratorium on Eviction Filings

Yesterday, a D.C. Superior Court Judge struck down D.C.'s local law moratorium on filing new eviction cases during the COVID-19 pandemic, writing that the eviction filing ban unconstitutionally infringed on landlords' right of access to the courts. The decision strikes down the District's ban on eviction filings, but does not overturn the city's moratorium on actual […]

Groups urge the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to strengthen protections against credit discrimination

48 consumer, civil rights, and public interest groups just submitted detailed comments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s on how to improve enforcement of the prohibitions against discrimination in the extension of consumer credit under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and its regulations. Read about it here.

Op-Ed: The COVID liability charade: Mitch McConnell’s demand is built on dishonest claims

Here. Excerpt: One reason there may have been so few consumer lawsuits is that it is difficult to prove exactly where and how a person got COVID, especially during a pandemic. And even in the rare case that a consumer can summon the needed proof, he or she would still have to show that the business did […]

Article on section 230 immunity

The immunity provided to internet platforms by section 230 of Communications Decency Act is a hot topic these days. Gregory Dickenson has written Rebooting Internet Immunity. Here is the abstract: We do everything online. We shop, travel, invest, socialize, and even hold garage sales. Even though we may not care whether a company operates online […]

Bill to protect people from pandemic economic crisis said to be collapsing over GOP insistence on protection against flood of law suits that doesen’t exist

by Jeff Sovern WaPo's report is here and HuffPo's here. Paul Krugman in the Times writes about how the GOP doesn't see real problems like climate change, but in this case they see a problem that doesn't exist. UPDATE: The Hill reports here that McConnell has suggested dropping liability protection and state and local funding […]

Trump admin makes it easier for lenders to charge small businesses super-high interest rates

Many states bar super-high interest rates. But high-cost lenders can circumvent such limits, known as usury caps, through rent-a-bank schemes. And under the Trump administration, the schemes have gotten a boost from two rules approved this year by the top federal banking regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Focusing on a small […]

Decision breathes some life into Maryland’s weak anti-SLAPP statute

by Paul Alan Levy Although Maryland was one of the first states to adopt an anti-SLAPP law, its weaknesses have become apparent over the years as other states have adopted stronger protections against suits brought to suppress free speech. Two of the most important obstacles to effectiveness of the statutes are found in the statute’s […]

Phony IP claims advanced to block Medicare pricing transparency

by Paul Alan Levy A couple of months ago, South Carolina lawyer B. Craig Killough advanced vague intellectual property claims in objecting to a blog post by a California health policy expert who commented on some aspects of the pricing policies being followed by Palmetto GBA, one of the companies retained by the federal Centers […]