In a unanimous opinion today in Lane v. Franks, the Court held that an employee who was fired by a public employer for giving subpoenaed judicial testimony about his state-funded program could maintain a claim for First Amendment retaliation. The key issue in the case was whether testifying was part of the employee's job responsibilities […]
Tess Wilkinson‐Ryan of Penn has written A Psychological Account of Consent to Fine Print, 99 Iowa Law Review 1745 (2014). Wilkinson-Ryan has a Ph.D in psychology as well as a law degree, and so brings to bear a different perspective in evaluating consumer reactions to fine print. I found this article useful in the research I'm […]
For those of you who haven't been following the fight to unionize NCAA football players, spearheaded by Northwestern players, this Daily Show piece is a great summary of the issue. (Here is ESPN's summary of the state of affairs: players have voted on whether to unionize — results not yet known. An NLRB regional office ruled […]
…is the subtitle of this Al Jazeera America piece on the use of tribal sovereign immunity to shield payday lenders from the reach of consumer protection laws (while, incidentally, providing little benefit to the tribes themselves). As the article explains: Tribal sovereignty allows the rancherias’ businesses to claim immunity from state usury laws, making them […]
by Paul Alan Levy Take a gander of this image: do you think, or even suspect, that Philip Morris, the maker of world-renowned Marlboro cigarettes, might approve this image, or might indeed be offering it for sale? If so, you might well be one of the morons in a hurry that Philip Morris and Roberta […]
That's the name of this article by Zywicki, Manne, and Morris. Here is the abstract: The Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation capped debit card interchange fees for banks with assets of $10 billion. Credit card and prepaid card interchange fees were not regulated. The cap, which took effect on October 11, 2011, […]
by Jeff Sovern Last March, the CFPB Monitor Blog, announced that "a group of representatives from across a variety of industries met to discuss the formation of a Research Integrity Council (RIC), the purpose of which will be to make recommendations to improve the quality and veracity of the research being conducted by the CFPB […]
by Jeff Sovern Our casebook includes a problem raising the question of whether discrimination against same sex couples in the granting of credit violates ECOA (some states have statutes explicitly barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, see, e.g., N.Y. Exec. L. 296-a(1)(a), and a HUD rule bars discrimination on the basis of sexual […]
by Paul Alan Levy Ready for Hillary may have no more sense of humor than the NSA, but like the NSA, its leaders apparently know when the law is against it. Late last night, just before midnight in fact, we learned that Ready for Hillary had sent a letter to Zazzle retracting its contention that […]
As of May 1, less than 5% of Minnesotans lack health insurance, down from just under 9% just 7 months earlier, as explained in this article by Jackie Crosby. (I'd be curious to hear about the latest data from other states.)