Brady Williams has written Unconscionability as a Sword: The Case for an Affirmative Cause of Action, 107 Calif. L. Rev. 2015 (2019). Here's the abstract: Consumers are drowning in a sea of one-sided fine print. To combat contractual overreach, consumers need an arsenal of effective remedies. To that end, the doctrine of unconscionability provides a […]
Take a look at All-Caps by law profs Yonathan Arbel and Andrew Toler. Here is the abstract: A hallmark of consumer contracts is long blocks of capitalized text. Courts and legislators believe that such “all-caps” clauses improve the quality of consumer consent and thus they will often require the capitalization of certain key terms in […]
Shmuel I. Becher of the Victoria University of Wellington and Uri Benoliel of the College of Law and Business – Ramat Gan Law School have written Sneak in Contracts: An Empirical Perspective. Here's the abstract: Consumer contracts are a pervasive legal tool that governs much of our daily activities. In spite of – or perhaps due […]
A column in the Washington Post today explains Facebook's new "Off-Facebook Activity" tool and suggests privacy settings you can change. Ever suspect the Facebook app is listening to you? What we now know is even creepier. Facebook is giving us a new way to glimpse just how much it knows about us: On Tuesday, the […]
Take a look at the Seventh Circuit's January 24 decision in Bigger v. Facebook, Inc., No. 19-1944. The Seventh Circuit succinctly sets out the dispute and its holding: This case presents the question whether a court may authorize notice to individuals [who are putative members of a Fair Labor Standards Act "collective" action and] who […]
by Jeff Sovern On Friday, the CFPB issued a Policy Statement on Abusive Acts or Practices. The Policy Statement is disappointing in several respects. First, it is intended to address a problem that has never been shown to exist. The Bureau explained that the Policy Statement is designed to ensure that “uncertainty does not impede or […]
The Montana Law Review is seeking papers on consumer law for a symposium to be held next September: The Montana Law Review invites submissions for the 2020 biennial Browning Symposium at the University of Montana’s Blewett School of Law. The symposium will take place September 24 and 25 in Missoula, Montana. The topic this biennium […]
The briefing is almost complete in Seila Law. v. Consumer Financial Protection Agency. In that case, the Supreme Court will consider whether the structure of the CFPB, which was established by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act of 2010, violates the separation of powers because the agency has a single direct who is removable by […]
Yesterday, Tara Siegel Bernard of the New York Times published a story providing an update on the claims process in the Equifax data breach litigation. The deadline to file initial claims was January 22, 2020. She reports that as of December 1, 2019, “just more than 10 percent of the consumers affected had filed for […]
Reuters reports on how protective orders sealing evidence about defective cars, drugs, and other products from public view can hide health and safety information from the public and impede government agencies — such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Food and Drug Administration — from protecting the public. The article is here.