Asserting that other courts of appeals have misread one of its precedents, the Eleventh Circuit has insisted that its law differs from that of other circuits on the question whether the pendency of a failed class action tolls the statute of limitations for a class member who attempts to file another class action. In yesterday's […]
Last week, a government report documented the underperformance of the federal Home Affordable Modification Program, which began in 2009 amidst great hope that it would be a big help for underwater homeowners. It hasn't worked out that way. According to the report, the program — run, it should be noted, by the big banks, such as […]
…is the concerning headline of a story last month from the website The Street. The story opens with the tale of one employee and her loan: Payday loans come in small amounts, but the $300 loan cost her $355. Based on the payday loan calculator at the Missouri Division of Finance Website, the fees equaled […]
This past Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that class claims against Netflix for alleged violations of the Video Privacy Protection Act and a similar California statute had to be dismissed because neither statute applies when a disclosure of information about a consumer's video-viewing history is the result of the consumer's decision […]
…says a former Justice Department and FTC lawyer, commenting late last month on the largest merger in the history of the health care industry. Read more about the merger and its implications here.
It seems sensible to require some licensing for professions closely connected with public health and safety (e.g. doctors, dentists, dental hygienists), or positions that involve public trust (e.g. lawyers), but a new White House report chronicles the costs both to consumers and to workers of our current system, in which approximately 30% of the U.S. […]
Jim Hawkins of Houston has written Using Advertisements to Diagnose Behavioral Market Failure. Here is the abstract: In imperfect markets where consumers have malleable preferences and bounded rationality, advertising has the potential to increase demand for products through persuasion and through information that exploits systematic mistakes that consumers make. Scholarship on advertising has criticized it […]
Washington State regulations concerning the dispensing of medicine require timely delivery of medications. There's an exception if a provider has a religious objection, but that exception applies only where there's another pharmacist who can provide timely delivery. A pharmacy owner and two pharmacists challenged these regulations under the Equal Protection Clause and Free Exercise Clause […]
A CNBC article this week provocatively titled "Aging Amtrak tunnel is a reminder of crumbling America" chronicles the recent troubles that have plagued passenger train travel in the northeast U.S. and highlights the absence of crucial fixes. For instance: For the fifth time in a week of breakdowns and electrical failures, thousands of passengers were […]
As Vijay Das of Public Citizen and physician Adam Gaffney observed in a CNN op-ed this week: [A]cross the nation, black males in 2010 had a life expectancy almost five years lower than white males; black women could expect to live three years fewer than white females. In addition to inequalities in health outcomes (which have […]