The Supreme Court has in recent years famously struck down laws that barred corporate electioneering on First Amendment grounds. But the Court has had little problem with laws that demand disclosure about who is contributing to elections and how much (though the Court protects anonymous speech in other contexts). With that in mind, read this L.A. […]
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by Brian Wolfman Earlier this year, we told you (here, here, and here) about eBay's terrible new arbitration clause that bars its customers, both sellers and buyers, from participating in class actions against the company. The new clause came with a cynical twist: eBay allowed its customers to opt out of the clause within a […]
Consumer advocates generally believe that federal judges nominated by President Obama are more likely to decide cases favorably to consumers than are judges nominated by the President's recent Republican predecessors. So, how has the President fared with his nominations? Bob Barnes of the Washington Post has penned this article that discusses the President's judicial nominations. […]
The Consumer Federation of America provides tips for safe holiday food use and preparation here.
Paul Levy gave us his perspective on Robert Bork last week. Historian Stanley Kutler, known for his works on Richard Nixon, now gives us his. Kutler thinks little of Bork's judicial philosophy of original intent (finding it at odds with what history tells us about the Founders' intent), but he thinks history has treated Bork unfairly […]
The crisis tally so far: about 4.7 million completed foreclosure sales from July 1 2007 through 2012 (extrapolating the 4th quarter), and more than 12 million foreclosure starts. Adding short sales brings the total home losses to well above 5 million. If we define the shadow inventory as mortgages presently more than 90 days delinquent […]
Earlier this month, Professor Margaret Jane Radin put out a new book called Boilerplate: The Fine Print, Vanishing Rights, and the Rule of Law. Publisher Princetion University Press describes Professor's Radin's argument as follows: Margaret Jane Radin examines attempts to justify the use of boilerplate provisions by claiming either that recipients freely consent to them […]
We told you last June that a panel of the D.C. Circuit had largely upheld the Environmental Protection Agency's greenhouse gas rules issued after the Supreme Court's decision in Massachusetts v. EPA demanded regulatory action on greenhouse gases. The panel's 82-page opinion, written by Judge Per Curiam (Sentelle, Rogers, and Tatel), was pretty comprehensive. Yesterday (nearly […]
We posted yesterday about a recent decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that authorized non-class members to intervene for the purpose of objecting to a district court's certification and settlement of a class action that might affect their interests. Class action lawyer Rob Bramson has made an interesting comment on […]
Today, the Washington Post reported on a new study quantifying how often surgeons make "never" mistakes, i.e., mistakes that should never happen, such as leaving an object in a patient, performing the wrong procedure, or performing the procedure on the wrong body part. Apparently, between 1990 and 2010, about 500 "never" events were reported to […]