by Paul Alan Levy One of the worst things that can happen to libel plaintiffs is to lose the suit in a way that confirms the veracity of the charges made publicly against it. This is what recently happened to Thomas Cooley law School. Past articles here have discussed its efforts to identify a former […]
I found this NYT commentary from this past weekend interesting: looking at a few recent cases pitting government regulators or homeowners against major banks, the article observes, "District court judges are not generally known as flamethrowers, but some seem to be losing patience with the banks."
by Deepak Gupta Legal reporter Alison Frankel of Reuters has a new column highlighting the effort to seek full-court rehearing of the Third Circuit's troubling decision in Carrera v. Bayer, which holds that plaintiffs must show, before they can certify a class, how they will identify and prove the class membership of consumers who purchased the defendant's product. […]
Stephen B. Burbank of Pennsylvania, Sean Farhang of Berkeley' s Goldman School of Public Policy, and Herbert M. Kritzer of Minnesota have written Private Enforcement, 17 Lewis & Clark Law Review 637 (2013). Here's the abstract: Our aim in this Article is to advance understanding of private enforcement of statutory and administrative law in the […]
This revealing podcast from This American Life tells the story of the acetaminophen warning that should have been — but wasn't. For decades. According to the show, fairly small overdoses of this popular pain medicine (the active ingredient in Tylenol) could be quite dangerous to a patient's liver, or even fatal. But the public remained […]
A little while ago Allison posted on the Third Circuit's recent decision in Carrera v. Bayer, explaining that the court … held that, if the defendant does not have purchase records, a consumer class action cannot be certified based on sworn customer affidavits. The court stated the "rigorous analysis" requirement for class certification "appl[ies] to […]
…is the title of this insightful NPR story yesterday from political correspondent Don Gonyea, who investigates a salient divide — highlighted by the current government-shutdown debate — between the populist/tea party wing and the business wing of the Republican Party. Which wing of the GOP should consumers root for in the shutdown debate? The tea […]
Settlements of privacy-based legal challenges to practices of big tech companies often include as one component a contribution by the offending tech giant (e.g. Facebook) to various privacy groups. This thought-provoking article from gigaom asks: is that money well-used, well-planned for? Do these settlements do any good? The article explains: In [several prominent privacy cases], […]
by Jeff Sovern I've posted a paper on SSRN, Can Cost-Benefit Analysis Help Consumer Protection Laws? Or at Least Benefit Analysis?, forthcoming in the University of California-Irvine Law Review. Here's the abstract: Cost-benefit analysis is often troubling to consumer advocates. But this article argues that in some circumstances it may help consumers. The article gives […]
As we've discussed previously, D.C.'s tax-lien program can result in homeowners losing their homes because of liens bought by private companies where the delinquency was only a few hundred dollars. The Post published a fabulous investigative piece (this link is to the first of the three-part series), and the D.C. officials have promised reform. Now, […]