Charles L. Knapp of Hastings has written Unconscionability in American Contract Law: A Twenty-First Century Survey. Here's the abstract: The notion that a court tasked with enforcing a private agreement should be allowed – or even, in some cases, required – to withhold enforcement because of the unfairness of the agreement is not a new […]
Today Public Citizen filed the opening brief in an appeal on behalf of a putative class of Applebee's workers throughout New York State. The workers sued their employer, T.L. Cannon, owner and operator of 53 Applebee's locations in New York, claiming various wage violations, including that the employer trained its supervisors and managers to manipulate […]
Linda Greenhouse had this interesting piece in the New York Times yesterday, about Chief Justice Roberts's "invitation" to cases challenging cy pres awards, as she describes the Chief Justice's statement (at p. 24 of the pdf) last week concerning the denial of the petiton for certiorari in Marek v. Lane–the cert petition about the cy […]
by Paul Alan Levy The major ruling of the day: Circuit Judge Denny Chin, sitting as a trial judge because he retained the case after being promoted to the Second Circuit, has granted summary judgment rejecting the Authors Guild’s copyright claims against Google’s program of scanning books into digital form and both offering the digital […]
by Deepak Gupta Jeff and Brian have already posted on the news of a final settlement in Mount Holly. Although we've known all along that a settlement was likely, this is still big news. Let's put this in perspective: For the second time in just two years, an eleventh-hour settlement before oral argument has denied the […]
by Deepak Gupta If you'll be in New Orleans tomorrow (Friday, Nov. 15), I hope you'll drop by the Hyatt French Quarter for the Louisiana Bar's consumer law seminar. Among other things, Professor Dalie Jimenez of the University of Connecticut (a former CFPB colleague) will discuss her research on debt buyers. At 4pm, you can watch […]
Jeff posted earlier about settlement of the Mt. Holly case shortly before argument in the Supreme Court. The case presented the question whether disparate impact claims may be brought under the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits housing discrimination (or, on the other hand, whether plaintiffs must show intentional discrimination to prevail under the Act). There […]
Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Mississippi ex rel. Hood v. AU Optronics Corp., which presents the question whether a state’s parens patriae suit may be removed as a “mass action” under the Class Action Fairness Act when the state is the sole plaintiff, the claims arise under state law, and the state […]
Lawyers for consumers and other plaintiffs have long complained that the Supreme Court's cases making summary judgment and dismissal easier to obtain have had adverse effects on their clients. That's not surprising. (For instance, it is the plaintiff who will be on the losing end of a successful motion to dismiss.) Now, law professors Kevin […]
So reports Carter Dougherty of Bloomberg. No link available yet. The case, which the Supreme Court would have heard arguments in next month, presented the issue of whether the disparate impact test can be used in FHA cases .