Today the Supreme Court denied BP's petition seeking review of a case interpreting the company's multi-billion dollar settlement over its 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The company claimed (both in court papers and via a public relations campaign) that it is improperly being forced to compensate losses unrelated to the spill. Read […]
Robert C. Hockett of Cornell has written 'We Don't Follow, We Lead': How New York City Will Save Mortgage Loans by Condemning Them, 124 Yale Law Journal Forum 131 (2014). Here is the abstract: This brief invited essay lays out in summary form the eminent domain plan for securitized underwater mortgage loans that the author […]
The state of the law on arbitration is undeniably titled against consumers, workers, and really anyone who is wronged by a corporation (including, sometimes, even smaller corporations). We've discussed on this site for years how arbitration undermines disputants' rights and favors the big repeat players. And we've discussed how far arbitration has extended under recent […]
As Forbes discusses, the D.C. city council has just passed a law to combat the abuses associated with civil asset forfeiture, the law enforcement practice of taking people's money or property and asking questions (such as whether they had the authority to do it) later. The Washington Post summarizes what asset forfeiture is: Civil forfeiture […]
by Jeff Sovern The press release is here. The rules themselves are here. Law360's Evan Weinberger reports here on whether they might become a model for the CFPB or other states. I am very curious to see how effective the new rules will be. They will surely help some consumers. Because the rules require disclosures, and […]
Our site does its share (we hope!) of calling attention to dangerous and/or exploitative corporate practices, so it's only fair that we also mention when a company seems to be looking out for its consumers. Brian's post earlier today discussed a looming showdown over airbag recalls, with the manufacturer, Takata, refusing NHTSA's demand to broaden […]
With Privacy Basics, the social network site provides a sleek, interactive guide to your privacy options. Whatever you think of Facebook's record on privacy, the new policy seems to reflect a recognition on Facebook's part that their users do care about it. I don't know all the details of how the policy has changed over […]
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently told Takata Corp. to expand its regional defective-airbag recall (in states that have high "absolute" humidity) to vehicles in the entire country. Takata just said no. Most recalls are voluntary — that is, the manufacturer agrees to do what the agency demands. Here, however, NHTSA will have to […]
by Deepak Gupta The Eleventh Circuit issued issued a very comprehensive and well reasoned opinion this week on a hot issue in consumer class-action practice: Can a defendants' attempt to "pick off" a class representative moot the class action? Or, as the opinion puts it: "This case presents the question whether a defendant may moot […]
by Deepak Gupta In today's Los Angeles Times, consumer columnist David Lazarus takes a look at the practice of for-profit debt collectors renting out the seal and letterhead of local California prosecutors — the target of a new class-action lawsuit that our firm filed yesterday in federal court in San Francisco. The practice was condemned in […]