by Brian Wolfman Remember the Obama Administration's early "stimulus" program known as cash-for-clunkers? The Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act of 2009, or CARS, was meant to encourage people to trade in their gas guzzlers and buy new fuel-efficient cars. You traded in the gas guzzler, and the federal government funded a $3,500 to […]
Emily Houh and Kristin Kalsem, both of Cincinnati, have written It's Critical: Legal Participatory Action Research, forthcoming in 18 Michigan Journal of Race & Law. Here's the abstract: The ongoing community-based research project that we describe in this article will contribute, we hope, to an understanding of the fringe economy by offering insights into what […]
That's the name of this post published by Daniel Colbert in the American Criminal Law Review. Colbert's piece examines United States v. Phillips, a recent en banc decision from the Seventh Circuit that deals with the intersection of criminal law and mortgage fraud. Here's the piece: By Daniel Colbert, ACLR Featured Blogger […]
Last week, we posted about JP Morgan's tentative agreement with the federal government to pay $13 billion to settle claims that it knowingly sold faulty mortgage securities that contributed to the financial crisis. The Wall Street Journal's editorial page and other members of the conservative press responded to the agreement by calling it a shakedown by […]
by Paul Alan Levy In this motion a prosecutor asked a trial judge to order a particular defense lawyer to stop referring to her during jury trials as “the Government” on the ground that jurors would likely take this as a derogatory reference “and is meant to make the State’s attorneys seem oppressive and to […]
We've blogged before about the "Company Doe" case, in which a company sued to block the inclusion of a product report in the Consumer Product Safety Commission's publicly available, web-accessible database about potentially dangerous products. The district court permitted the company to litigate in secret and under the pseudonym "Company Doe," and a coalition of […]
by Jeff Sovern In the Detroit News. Professor Joseph refers to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as "purposefully-misnamed," as if members of Congress sat around saying "let's create an agency that will hurt consumers but give it a name that suggests it will protect them." So what does he think is wrong with the Bureau? […]
by Paul Alan Levy Over the years I have blogged several times about corporate abuses of trademark law to use litigation, or the threat of litigation to block criticism. Because they have so many other tools to deploy against citizens, government agencies usually do not stoop to this level – the City of Memphis aside […]
Yesterday, consumers, employees, and others who are subject to mandatory arbitration agreements that inhibit their ability to present their claims got a big win and a big loss in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit—from the very same panel. The same three judges, Richard Clifton, Richard Tallman, and Consuelo Callahan, in cases argued […]
That's the finding of this study from the New America Foundation. Here's the Foundation's data summary: Last year, the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute published The Cost of Connectivity, a first-of-its-kind study of the cost of consumer broadband services in 22 cities around the world. The results showed that, in comparison to their international […]