Here. An excerpt from what the collector supposedly said: "F— you! Pay us your money! You can't afford an attorney. You owe us. I hope your wife divorces your a–. If you would have served our country better you would not be a disabled veteran living off social security while the rest of us honest […]
by Jeff Sovern I've been studying up on student loans because we intend to include some materials on them in the next edition of our casebook. One thing I've learned is that the federal Higher Education Act and its implementing regulations require students obtaining federal student loans to have counseling before they take the loans. See 34 […]
A coalition of business groups and labor unions sued in New York state court on Friday to stop New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's ban on the sale of sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces. Read the complaint and this press account. The complaint claims, among other things, that the regulations are arbitrary and irrational under New […]
That's Steven Pearlstein's characterization of the judiciary's attitude toward federal health and safety regulation in a column published today. Here's an excerpt discussing what Pearlstein views as a recent example: Their latest salvo came just before Labor Day, when a divided three-judge panel threw out rules requiring states to control the air pollution that wafts […]
by Jeff Sovern Mark Bittman has an interesting column in today’s Times, My Dream Food Label, describing how his ideal food label would use traffic lights–green, yellow, or red– to signal qualities such as the healthfulness of the food. Though Bittman doesn’t mention the health department restaurant grading system, which uses letter grades, it’s a […]
Oren Bar-Gill has written Seduction by Contract: Law, Economics and Psychology in Consumer Markets (Oxford University Press 2012). The Introduction is available here. Here's the abstract: Consumers routinely enter into contracts with providers of goods and services. These contracts are designed by sophisticated sellers to exploit the psychological biases of consumers. They provide short-term benefits, while imposing […]
As this article by Sheri Qualters explains, "Netflix Inc. has agreed to put closed captions on 100 percent of its streaming content within two years to settle a lawsuit filed by the National Association of the Deaf last year" under the Americans With Disabilities Act. This settlement could encourage other on-line video providers to follow […]
The purpose of the Airline Deregulation Act (ADA) of 1978 was to get federal and state governments out of the business of regulating the economic aspects of the commercial passenger airline industry. (The FAA still regulates the safety of air travel.) Mark Perry, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, has found that, despite a […]
Chunlin Leonhard of Loyola University New Orleans has written The Subprime Mortgage Crisis and Economic Checks and Balances, Banking & Financial Services Policy Report, June 2012, at 15. Here's the abstract: This article examines contract law’s role in the subprime mortgage crisis, specifically in the way that the laissez faire paradigm of traditional contract law […]