The Wall Street Journal reports that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is hiring again, following a 15 percent loss of staff since the Trump Administration took over the agency in late 2017. The CFPB "recently lifted a nearly two-year hiring freeze, according to an internal email reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. It also has […]
by Jeff Sovern Section 1692g(a)(4) requires debt collectors to send consumers a "a statement that if the consumer notifies the debt collector in writing within the thirty-day period that the debt, or any portion thereof, is disputed, the debt collector will obtain verification of the debt or a copy of a judgment against the consumer and a copy of such verification or judgment will be mailed to the consumer by the debt collector . […]
The Ninth Circuit has held, in Dorman v. Charles Schwab, that ERISA claims (brought in court in a class action) can be forced out of court and into individual arbitration through an arbitration clause in an amendment to an ERISA 401(k) plan forced on Schwab's employees. Here's how the Ninth Circuit's informal summary explains the […]
Two recent appellate decisions have continued the courts' exploration of how the Supreme Court's Spokeo standing decision affects cases under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). Both find that a debt collector's actions violated a right conferred on consumers by the statute and that the deprivation of the right was an injury sufficient to […]
We have received the following call for abstracts (last year's conference was excellent): The Berkeley Center for Consumer Law and Economic Justice, its director Ted Mermin, and co-organizers Abbye Atkinson, Kathleen Engel, Manisha Padi, Rory Van Loo, and Lauren Willis are pleased to announce the second annual Consumer Law Scholars Conference (CLSC), which will be […]
Law profs Stephen Burbank and Sean Farhang have written Politics, Identity, and Class Certification on the U.S. Courts of Appeals, which asks whether there are associations between personal characteristics of appellate judges and the party of the presidents who appointed those judges, among other things, and class-certification decisions. Here is the abstract: This article draws […]
Jamie Luguri and Lior Strahilevitz, both of Chicago, have written Shining a Light on Dark Patterns. Here is the abstract: Dark patterns are user interfaces whose designers knowingly confuse users, make it difficult for users to express their actual preferences, or manipulate users into taking certain actions. They typically exploit cognitive biases and prompt online consumers […]
Here. Excerpt: Companies like National Debt Relief seek out heavily indebted consumers with a promise to help them get out from under it. But regulators say these debt-settlement programs can leave customers worse off, facing high fees, damaged credit scores and unexpected income-tax bills. * * * Data from credit-reporting companies has been used by some debt-settlement […]
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday affirmed the district court’s order certifying a class Facebook users in a case challenging Facebook’s facial-recognition technology as a violation of Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).The court held that plaintiffs alleged a concrete and particularized harm, sufficient to confer Article III standing, because BIPA protected the […]
Scotusblog this week posted an analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court's review of class action cases. Among its observations is that the Court overturns almost 70 percent of class action decisions made by appeals courts by either reversing or vacating these decisions. In addition, the analysis found that, between the 2010 and 2018 terms, the […]