by Paul Alan Levy This spring I reported on a decision of the Virginia Supreme Court that overturned a contempt citation against Yelp for honoring its users First Amendment right to post pseudonymous criticisms of a Virginia merchant called Hadeed Carpet Cleaning, because Hadeed refused to present any evidence that the reviewers had made any […]
We've covered before the ongoing fight over employers' responsibility to provide insurance that covers contraception, a mandate that some employers argue violates their religious beliefs. The opening of the argument in the Solicitor General's brief in opposition to certiorari in Priests for Life v. HHS summarizes the state of the law as the Court considers whether […]
Richard Frankel of Drexel has written Concepcion and Mis-Concepcion: Why Unconscionability Survives the Supreme Court's Arbitration Jurisprudence, 17 Journal of Dispute Resolution. Here is the abstract: States have long relied on the doctrines of unconscionability and public policy to protect individuals against unfair terms in mandatory arbitration provisions. The Supreme Court recently struck a blow […]
In a split decision Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck down a portion of an SEC rule requiring publicly traded companies to disclose whether their products “have not been found to be ‘DRC conflict free’”—a term defined to mean that they do not […]
As NPR reports, a number of presidential candidates have been proposing, to enthusiastic reception, that students be permitted to refinance their student debt in the same manner mortgage borrowers can refinance their home loans. But is this the best policy? In particular, is it a policy that helps the student borrowers who are struggling the […]
We've mentioned before that Alaska is among the latest states to join a slow but steady trend toward accepting the Medicaid expansion enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act but rendered optional by the Supreme Court's 2012 ruling on the constitutionality of the law. Unable to block the governor's decision to accept the Medicaid […]
The Washington Post reports: The Obama administration said Wednesday it will overhaul the loan forgiveness process for students who believe they have been defrauded by their colleges, in light of the collapse of controversial for-profit Corinthian Colleges. Students can apply to have their federal loans discharged if they can prove a school used illegal or deceptive tactics in violation […]
Talia B Gillis, a doctoral student at Harvard, has written Putting Disclosure to the Test: Toward Better Evidence-Based Policy. Here is the abstract: Financial disclosures no longer enjoy the immunity from criticism they once had. While disclosures remain the hallmark of numerous areas of regulation, there is increasing skepticism as to whether disclosures are understood […]
…is the title of this thoughtful NYT piece, which considers the difficult balance doctors must strike in helping patients manage debilitating pain while avoiding feeding addition. The quote sums it up well: A 2011 report from the Institute of Medicine highlighted how poorly the medical field handles pain. Undertreating pain, we [doctors] are admonished, violates […]
Target Corp has reached an agreement with Visa card issuers to reimburse up to $67 million in costs related to a data breach at Target in 2013. The breach compromised at least 40 million credit cards and may have resulted in the theft of personal information from as many as 110 million people. The Reuters […]