by Brian Wolfman After the Supreme Court last summer held (7 to 2) that the Affordable Care Act's medicaid expansion could not be forced on the states under the Constitution's so-called Spending Clause, it was left to the states to decide whether they wanted the expansion. Medicaid expansion under the ACA is broad, providing coverage […]
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by Jeff Sovern Tomorrow's Sunday Times has a series of letters on the issue of whether society needs more regulation or less. One letter, by Dennis Canfield of Western Springs, Ill., opines: The problem with the current state of government involvement in our daily lives is that the overwhelming majority of it — from employment regulations […]
by Jeff Sovern The report is here. The study identifed "best" and "good practices" and then looked to see if 36 of the largest 50 banks employed those practices (the practices of the other 14 could not be obtained without physically visting the banks). From the Overview: Pew defines best practices as those that are the […]
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau head Richard Cordray announced today that the agency has enhanced its Consumer Complaint Database to include state-by-state information. The CFPB also added complaints about money transfers and credit reporting to the database. “This data puts valuable information in the hands of consumers to help them understand what is happening in their […]
As explained in this article by Ylan Mui, "American households have rebuilt less than half of the wealth lost during the recession, leaving them without the spending power to fuel a robust economic recovery, according to a new analysis from the Federal Reserve."
Law professor Janet Alexander has written "To Skin a Cat: Qui Tam Actions as a State Legislative Response to Concepcion." Here is the abstract: The Supreme Court’s decision in Concepcion is widely regarded as heralding the demise of small-claims class actions whenever contracts of adhesion are involved in the transaction — which means for virtually […]
As our readers know, on April 25, 2013, the Solicitor General petitioned the Supreme Court to review the D.C. Circuit's Noel Canning decision, which held that three putative recess appointments made by President Obama to the National Labor Relations Board were, in fact, not proper recess appointments and were thus invalid. Here's how the the […]
This article by Lori Montgomery explains that, according to a a new Congressional Budget Office report, The 10 largest breaks in the U.S. tax code will save taxpayers more than $900 billion this year, with a little more than half the benefits flowing to the richest 20 percent of households …. Whether that's a good or […]
In Hooks v. Forman, Holt, Eliades & Ravin, No. 12-3639-cv (May 29, 2013), the Second Circuit has held that a debt collector's collection notice violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act by stating that the plaintiffs could only dispute the validity of a debt in writing. The court's ruling is consistent with earlier Ninth Circuit […]
We've written before about the potential effects on class actions of the Supreme Court's decision this Term in Comcast v. Behrend: see here, here, and here. Yesterday's Ninth Circuit opinion in Levya v. Medaline Industries is a welcome development in the growing body of post-Comcast jurisprudence in the lower courts. The opinion, written by the […]