By Steve Gardner, Center for Science in the Public Interest My most-excellent colleague at CSPI, Erika Knudsen, wrote a great piece for CSPI's Food Day blog. Check it out. It's a great read overall, and as an extra added bonus, it includes a link to a recent Colbert Report segment mocking Coke for Vitaminwater. Spoiler alert–the […]
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by Paul Bland, Public Justice Consumer and plaintiffs' lawyers know that there have been a long string of cases where the Supreme Court has enforced arbitration clauses. In the course of doing that, though, the Court has always said that enforcing arbitration clauses won’t cause any harm, because (the Court has insisted and promised) arbitration […]
A fascinating and troubling story from NPR this morning about Americans with little or no savings is worth a listen (or read) to get a sense of many Americans' financial vulnerability. Here's the opening: In his inaugural address, President Obama talked about a country where even "a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows […]
Legal reporter Jenna Greene says here that "[t]The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was dealt a devastating—if indirect—blow last week, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that three recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board were invalid." That remains to be seen, as the D.C. Circuit likely won't have the […]
Some opponents of the Affordable Care Act claimed that the Act could self-destruct because providers would refuse to take on newly covered (supposedly, non-lucrative) patients, particularly those covered under the Act's massive Medicaid expansion. Not so, at least according to a new study in Michigan conducted by the Ann Arbor-based Center for Healthcare Research & […]
Michigan State University College of Law Professor Mark Totten has written Credit Reform and the States: The Vital Role of Attorneys General after Dodd-Frank. Here is the abstract: Congress employed multiple strategies in the wake of the Great Recession to provide greater protections for consumers in the financial marketplace. One strategy aimed at agency design […]
Consumers shop on the Internet for low prices and convenience. But both low prices and convenience are at risk because prices for consumer goods and services on the Internet change frequently, making it hard to get the best (or even a good) price without a lot of search and monitoring time. This article by Stephanie […]
by Brian Wolfman Last Thursday, Judge Arthur Spatt, a federal district judge in Brooklyn, postponed a decision on final approval of a settlement in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) class action on the ground of inadequate notice. See Corpac v. Rubin & Rothman, 2013 WL 265318 (E.D.N.Y. Jan. 24, 2012). The plaintiff alleged […]
That's the name of the video linked here. Many of the readers of this blog work for justice in the civil courts. The video is about people who represent poor people in criminal cases.
Yesterday, Scott Michelman posted on Public Citizen's opposition to proposed Tennessee lawyer advertising rules that would undermine consumer choice and competition in the legal services market. Citing similar concerns, the FTC has also opposed the proposed rules, as explained here. UPDATE: Read the FTC's press release and comments on the proposed rules.