Anti-SLAPP Statute Extended to Wage Claim by Authors of Content of Public Interest

by Paul Alan Levy Techdirt carries a discussion  of a recent decision dismissing a class action complaint filed against Yelp on behalf of Yelp users contending that, because their reviews provide content that allows Yelp to profit through the sale of advertising, reviewers are employees who are entitled to payment for their labor under the […]

Read this article: “The Lien Machine: New breed of investor profits by financing surgeries for desperate women patients”

The article was written by Reuters' reporters Alison Frankel and Jessica Dye. Here's a little taste of it: In the little known world of medical lending, financiers invest in operations to remove pelvic implants from women suing device makers – and reap an inflated share of the payouts when cases settle. * * * Previously […]

Court decision destabilizes First Amendment law, with negative consequences for consumers

At the New York Times, reporter Adam Liptak writes about the Supreme Court's June decision in Reed v. Town of Gilbert and explains why what might have been an unremarkable First Amendment case may have significant consequences for a wide range of laws, including consumer protection laws. The key move in Justice Thomas’s [majority] opinion […]

DC Circuit reinstates antitrust case against Visa and Mastercard

The court explained: The crux of the Plaintiffs’ complaints is that when someone uses a non-bank ATM, the cardholder pays a greater fee and the ATM operator earns a lower return on each transaction because of certain Visa and MasterCard network rules. These rules prohibit differential pricing based on the cost of the network that […]

Some Comments on Comments on the CFPB Arbitration Study

by Jeff Sovern Earlier this week, I posted a link to the Ballard Spahr comments, on behalf of various industry trade associations, on the CFPB Arbitration Study .  Their thesis is that the Bureau Study indicates that consumers fare better in arbitration than litigation in general and class actions in particular. For example, here is […]

A proposed workplace beryllium rule, finally – but it is good enough?

Beryllium, a known carcinogen, is used in the construction industry, electronics manufacturing, and the nuclear energy industry, among others. Public Citizen estimates that 23,000 construction workers come into contact with beryllium daily. Last week, fourteen years after Public Citizen first petitioned OSHA for stronger worker protections against beryllium, OSHA issued a proposed rule lowering the […]