The ACLU recently released a report on the criminalization of private debt: An estimated 77 million Americans—one in three adults—have a debt that has been turned over to a private collection agency. Thousands of these debtors are arrested and jailed each year because they owe money. Millions more are threatened with jail. The debts owed […]
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by Stephen Gardner On February 27, the Northern District of California issued an opinion on a motion to dismiss in Becerra v. The Coca-Cola Company. The court got the law right, but then ruled based on incorrect conclusions on disputed facts. There are two parts to the opinion. First, the court analyzed Coke’s various attempts to avoid […]
National banks have long argued for broad preemption of state laws that would otherwise apply to their activities, and their federal regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has often gone along. In an important decision issued Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that preemption is more limited than the banks […]
"Teaching Consumer Law–Where We've Been–Where We're Going" will be held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, May 18-19th. The Conference is designed for those teaching consumer law, those interested in teaching consumer law full-time or as an adjunct, and anyone interested in discussing the consumer law issues law professors are thinking about. The registration fee is […]
The Federal Trade Commission reports that the number of consumer complaints about fraud dropped in 2017, but consumers reported losing more money than they did in 2016. The data book includes national statistics, as well as a state-by-state listing of top report categories in each state, and a listing of metropolitan areas that generated the […]
In this Atlantic piece, Derek Thompson helps expose the farcical Trump tax cut for what it is: Corporate stock buybacks in the first 6 weeks of 2018 "reached historical high[s], totaling about $170 billion. That’s 28 times larger than the total value of end-of-year [worker] bonuses that were [wrongly] credited to the corporate tax bill."
by Jeff Sovern Many localities require restaurants to post their health department grades at their entrance so diners can decide whether the restaurant is safe to patronize. One of my students, Vasilios D. Lolis, saw the picture below on Instagram. Can you spot the grade? (I lack the technical know-how to eliminate the caption) This points […]
Politico reports: The Trump administration is taking steps to shield student loan collection companies from state regulators, over the objections of consumer advocates and even some Republican attorneys general. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is preparing to issue a declaration that companies collecting federal student loans are off limits for state lawmakers and regulators. The “notice […]
by Jeff Sovern The White House issued its 2017 Draft Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations and AgencyCompliance with the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act today. According to Table 1-3 in the report, at page 19, the benefits of three consumer protection rules the administration looked at were estimated at $1.9 to […]
I know little of economics but I've frequently said to myself (and occasionally to colleagues and clients) that, all other things equal, the defendant generally benefits from delay, and the plaintiff, wanting to see some cash, rarely so. But what do I know? You consumer litigators out there might find some actual enlightenment on the […]