The Ninth Circuit handed down an excellent decision on October 20, resolving an open question as to whether a class action plaintiff can seek future injunctive relief when she won’t get fooled again. This often arises with retail purchases, where a duped consumer who is on the ball enough to be a class representative is […]
by Jeff Sovern . . . or it could come later in the week. Or not. My speculation is that the Senate leadership will call the vote if they think they have the votes to pass the resolution but otherwise they will let it go until closer to the deadline. So the real question is […]
by Jeff Sovern The article, by Kate Berry and Ian McKendry, is headlined Fight to kill CFPB arbitration rule could rest on whose data is right. Here's some of what the article says about the OCC claims, though the article has more than I can insert here. "The uncertainty of the OCC's estimate is very large, […]
The Treasury Department's report is called Limiting Consumer Choice, Expanding Costly Litigation: An Analysis of the CFPB Arbitration Rule. The first sentence of the report's conclusion (on page 17 of the report) would be laughable if the topic — access to the courts — were not so serious: "The Bureau’s Rule would upend a century of federal […]
Guest post by Emily Martin, General Counsel and Vice President for Workplace Justice. National Women's Law Center Fox News. Sterling Jewelers. Wells Fargo. What do they all have in common? For years, they successfully kept corporate wrongdoing secret, through forced arbitration. Buried in the fine print of employment contracts and consumer agreements, forced arbitration clauses prohibit you […]
That's the topic of The Bold Ambition of Justice Scalia's Arbitration Jurisprudence: Keep Workers and Consumers Out of Court by law prof. Katherine Stone. Here's the abstract: Arbitration clauses have become a pervasive feature of modern life. The expanding scope of arbitration has become a cause for alarm amongst consumer and worker advocates, who see it as […]
by Jeff Sovern The story is headlined 'Plague on both your houses': Cordray, Noreika get scolding from statisticians. Excerpt: " * * * There isn’t strong evidence either way,” said Bruce Meyer, a professor at the University of Chicago. “There is weak evidence that says more than likely there is a positive effect on the cost […]
by Jeff Sovern The piece is by Richard Coniff and is titled Why We Don’t Vote With Our Wallets. Excerpt: [W]e get bored and look away from the dull crimes companies commit every day, like Wells Fargo foisting phony accounts and unwanted auto insurance on its customers. * * * Like Volkswagen selling “clean diesel” […]
by Jeff Sovern Much has been made of the fact that the day the Equifax breach became public, Congress held a hearing on bills that would have limited damages credit bureaus would have to pay for misconduct. This past Tuesday, the Senate Banking Committee held a hearing titled Consumer Data Security and the Credit Bureaus […]
The New York Times reports that "Wells Fargo engaged in unfair and deceptive practices, failed to properly manage risks and hasn’t set aside enough money to pay back the customers it harmed, according to a confidential report by federal regulators." "The report, prepared by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and reviewed by […]