Category Archives: Uncategorized

Military consumers get a federal private right of action

by Maura Dundon, Senior Policy Counsel, Center for Responsible Lending Military consumers get a federal private right of action Recent amendments to the Military Lending Act (aka the Talent Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act) provide a rare, new private right of action for military consumers—but the effectiveness of the potentially broad-sweeping Act still […]

David Lazarus on Sending Corporate Criminals to Jail

The LA Times's David Lazurus says in this article that the large-sounding corporate criminal penalties — like recent ones against Glaxo for off-label drug promotion and against BP for conduct that led to the Gulf oil spill — aren't enough to deter and that some corporate criminals should spend time behind bars. Here's an excerpt: If […]

Charles Carreon’s Trademark Claims End, Not With a Bang, but a Whimper

by Paul Alan Levy Last summer, I blogged about trademark claims threatened by Charles Carreon, a California lawyer with a notorious past who maintains a private practice out of his home in Arizona.  He had threatened suit against an anonymous blogger for making fun of Carreon at a web site using the domain name charles-carreon.com, […]

Virginia Supreme Court Reverses Preliminary Injunction Against Yelp Review

by Paul Alan Levy The Virginia Supreme Court has summarily reversed a preliminary injunction requiring the author of a consumer review criticizing a Washington DC contractor to revise her statements about the contractor.   We filed a petition for review arguing that the injunction was an impermissible prior restraint, in addition to violating the common law […]

Rochelle Broboff on the Supreme Court’s Nitro-Lift Decision and the Concern Over Supreme Court Unanimity in FAA Decisions

We posted in late November about the Supreme Court's unanimous per curiam Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) decision in Nitro-Lift Technologies v. Howard. There, the Justices held that, in light of an arbitration clause, only an arbitrator and not the Oklahoma courts could, in the first instance, hold contract provisions unenforceable. Now, in this article, Rochelle Broboff […]

The Freedom of Information Act in President Obama’s First Term

by Brian Wolfman On his first full day in office, President Obama issued a memorandum on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). He quoted Louis Brandeis's famous line that "sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants" and directed federal agencies to "adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure." Less than two months later, […]

Plaintiffs and Toyota Agree to Sudden-Acceleration Settlement

by Brian Wolfman The Impact Litigation Journal reports that The parties have announced a settlement in the Toyota sudden acceleration multi-district litigation pending in a Santa Ana federal court. Under the terms of the settlement, which must now receive judicial approval, Toyota will install a brake-override system in some 3.25 million vehicles in addition to paying […]