Category Archives: Uncategorized

“Homes for the taking”: Must-read investigative report on District of Columbia program that drives some poor people out of their homes

Read it here. Here's the page-one, top-of-the-paper headline in today's Washington Post: This man [pictured above the fold in the Post] owed $134 in property taxes. The District [of Columbia] sold the lien to an investor who foreclosed on his $197,000 home and sold it. He and many other homeowners like him were LEFT WITH […]

Is the Affordable Care Act bringing down the cost of health insurance?

Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), individuals and families can buy private health insurance coverage through in state-sponsored markets (also known as "exchnages"). The markets open for business in October 2013. The insurance coverage purchased in those markets will take effect on January 1, 2014. We posted earlier that health insurance premiums will be 50% […]

Does Google’s market dominance undermine consumer privacy?

That's one of the topics of an article by Nathan Newman entitled "The Costs of Lost Privacy: Consumer Harm and Rising Economic Inequality in the Age of Google." Here is the abstract: This article emphasizes the broad consumer harm from the extraction of personal user data deployed by Google and many other online companies for […]

Today’s Arbitration Outrage: Second Circuit Says Destitute New York Resident Consumer Must Arbitrate Case in Arizona

By Paul Bland, Senior Attorney at Public Justice @PblandBland   Periodically, people ask me rhetorical questions like, "How much worse can the law of arbitration get?  I mean, it's so incredibly bad that it has to have bottomed out, right?" As Jane Wagner famously wrote, no matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep […]

Immigrant rights groups and other legal services providers sue FTC under the Freedom of Information Act for access to consumer-complaint database

Read about it here. Here's an excerpt: Hiring a nonlawyer to do legal work carries the risk of a bad outcome, but the stakes can be especially high for immigrants. Misfiled forms or missed deadlines can lead to deportation. Legal fraud targeting immigrants is on the rise, according to immigration lawyers who blame confusion arising […]

APWU Attacks on Its Members’ Democratic Rights — One Down, One to Go

by Paul Alan Levy Over the course of more than twenty years of representing union members in litigation over issues of union democracy, before my main focus switched to Internet law and IP issues, I found that in some unions, the leaders think nothing of spending other peoples’ money – the union treasury that is […]

Are Manhattan Lasik Center’s discount coupons worth buying?

by Paul Alan Levy The Manhattan Lasik Center secures customers, in part, by offering discounts through Groupon and similar online marketing programs.  For a $1795 Groupon, for example, a customer can get lasik treatment for both eyes.  Several reviews posted on Yelp, however, suggest that it is not at all unusual for patients to appear […]

Frivolous Libel Threats – the Reality Show

by Paul Alan Levy Last October, blogger Christina Garner posted an introspective article reflecting on media coverage of a lawsuit in which Tonya Cooley, a reality-show participant, alleged that two fellow participants had assaulted her sexually in a sequence that did not appear in the broadcast, including inserting a toothbrush into her while she was […]

Tribal lender Western Sky getting out of payday loan business

Yesterday, we told you about declaratory judgment suits by Native American tribes against New York regulators seeking the right to make otherwise usurious payday loans on the ground that the tribes' sovereign immunity allows them to operate free from state usury laws. Now comes word that another payday lender, Western Sky, owned by a Cheyenne […]