An NPR economic reporter sent an online request for a $500 payday loan to see what happened. So what happened? A barrage of contacts, by phone and email, seeking to lend her all kinds of amounts, as high as ten times the amount she asked for, and at interest rates as high as 1300%. But […]
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That is the name of this article by law professor Mark Moller. Here is the abstract: The Supreme Court’s 2011 decision, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, drew heavily on the work of the late Professor Richard Nagareda. In a series of seminal articles, Professor Nagareda urged courts to treat class action procedure as a handmaiden […]
As this article from late last week explains, a new study of the effects of the 2009 Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act finds that the Act is saving consumers more than $20 billion dollars a year by placing limits on certain credit card company practices that could lead to surprise fees for […]
According to this article by Jenna Greene, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been targetting lawyers in its enforcement suits. Here's an excerpt: The agency has filed more lawsuits against lawyers than almost any other group, according to an analysis by The National Law Journal, bringing six suits against legal services providers. Only the banking […]
We have blogged about the "company Doe" suit a couple times, including here. That's the case in which a company sued to block the inclusion of a product report in the Consumer Product Safety Commission's publicly available, web-accessible database about potentially dangerous products. The district court permitted the company to litigate in secret and under […]
On Friday, we told you about FDA's proposal to authorize generic drug manufacturers to update labels to provide new warnings, just like brand-name manufacturers have been authorized to do since 1982. Janet Woodcock, the head of FDA's drug research and evaluation division, has written an essay in FDA Voice explaining why the agency wants the […]
In Wyeth v. Levine (2009), the Supreme Court held that the FDA's approval of the labeling for a brand-name prescription drug generally does not preempt a personal-injury state-law tort claim premised on the manufacturer's failure to warn about the drug. But, later, in PLIVA v. Mensing (2011), the Supreme Court held that state-law failure-to-warn claims […]
This article by Sabrina Tavernese explains: The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday proposed measures that would all but eliminate artificial trans fats, the artery clogging substance that is a major contributor to heart disease in the United States, from the food supply. Under the proposal, which is open for public comment for 60 days, […]
by Brian Wolfman The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau took two steps yesterday in the debt-collection realm. First, it began adding complaints about debt collection to its public consumer-complaint database. Second, it began the process of rulemaking for the debt-collection industry. The agency issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking seeking data on many issues, including the […]
This story from NPR's Morning Edition this morning discusses various states' efforts to handle consumer questions regarding the implementation of Obamacare. Several states are outsourcing the operation of call centers to companies like Maximus, but most of the states won't make public how much they are paying for the service; for instance, Connecticut's contract with […]