This has been a revealing week for President Obama's two appointees to the Supreme Court, who are becoming two of the strongest voices on the Court. On Monday, Justice Sotomayor made national headlines with her opinion regarding a denial of cert. (beginning at page 13 of this Order List) — though agreeing on procedural grounds […]
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We posted recently on the revolving door between industry and congressional staffs. Now, we've been provided more detail with this joint review by Remapping Debate and the Center for Responsive Politics. The review looked at the chiefs of staff and legislative directors of the new members of the 113th Congress to detemine who previously worked […]
The Fourth Circuit has held, in Noohi v. Toll Brothers, that an arbitration clause in a contract between home buyers and a real estate development company is unenforceable because the clause lacked mutuality of consideration under governing Maryland law. (The clause lacked mutuality because it forced the home buyers but not the development company to […]
That's the name of this article by Caroline Flynn. Here's the abstract: The First Amendment prohibits the government from leveraging its employment relationship with a public employee in order to silence the employee’s speech. But the Supreme Court dramatically curtailed this right in Garcetti v. Ceballos by installing a categorical bar: if the public employee […]
In an 6-3 decision authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court held today in Amgen v. Connecticut Retirement Plans that plaintiffs in a federal securities-fraud class action need not prove that the defendant's allegedly fraudulent statements were material to obtain class certification. Justice Ginsburg's opinion contains this nice synopsis: The issue presented concerns the […]
As explained in this article by Jessica Dye, U.S. district judge Jed Rakoff has thrown out a suit brought by a lawyer against Westlaw and Lexis claiming a copyright in documents he created and filed in court. That may be good news for consumers looking for access to court documents. The case is called Edward […]
by Jeff Sovern Here. But their definition of "few" still seems high. "Only" 4.2% of the consumers whose homes were foreclosed upon are said to have been "harmed" by robosigning. That seems to come from a report from the OCC which has historically been captured by the banks, though since the appointment of Thomas Curry […]
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today refused to reconsider its opinion last fall upholding the settlement of a class action asserting claims based on Facebook's "Beacon" program, under which Facebook posted information about purchases and video rentals Facebook users made from companies that participated in the program. The settlement provides for […]
I thought our readers might be interested in reading this speech given today by Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Richard Cordray to the National Association of Attorneys General. Among other things, he stressed (1) a need to make mortage lending simpler and more transparent; (2) a preference that more consumer-protective state laws not be preempted; […]
The Supreme Court held today that an unsuccessful FDCPA plaintiff in a non-frivolous case must pay the defendant's costs (which could be hundreds or occasionally, as in this case, thousands of dollars), even though the statute's text provides for attorney-fee- and cost-shifting only where "an action under this section was brought in bad faith and […]