As states begin implementing the Affordable Care Act, will they offer a range of options at prices preferable to what is available today? Chad Terhune has written this article about what California is doing. Here's an exceprt: After weeks of negotiations, California said it has selected 13 health plans for a new state-run insurance marketplace […]
Two Yale heavyweights, Ian Ayres & Alan Schwartz, have written The No Reading Problem in Consumer Contract Law, forthcoming in the Stanford Law Review. Here is the abstract: Instead of attempting to promote informed consumer assent through quixotic attempts to have consumers read ever-expanding disclosures, this Article argues that consumer protection law should focus on […]
Carter Dougherty of Bloomberg has a must-read story on the practical effects of the constitutional controversy over Rich Cordray's appointment. The D.C. Circuit's ruling in Noel Canning, he reports, "has hampered the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, slowing some enforcement, impeding recruitment of a second-in-command, and delaying joint ventures with the states." Among other things, the Bloomberg […]
Daniel Schwarcz of Minnesota has written Monitoring, Reporting, and Recalling Defective Financial Products, University of Chicago Legal Forum (2013). Here is the abstract: In recent years, innovations in consumer financial protection have drawn heavily from the law governing the safety of tangible products. This short essay, prepared for a symposium entitled "Frontiers of Consumer Protection," […]
by Paul Alan Levy Anonymous Internet users based in Tanzania are fighting a subpoena from Wineland-Thomson Adventures, a company that runs super-luxury safaris and climbs on Mount Kilimanjaro under the name Thomson Safaris, seeking to identify the authors of a web site that takes Thomson to task over allegations of brutal attacks on Masai villagers […]
For the Journal of Consumer Policy. More here.
by Brian Wolfman In recent years, July 1 has been the crisis date for the federal program that subsidizes student loans. The loans are subsidized in a number of ways, principally by having below-market interest rates. Unless Congress acts, on July 1, the current 3.4% interest rate will double to 6.8%. A reform idea would […]
by Paul Alan Levy A useful ruling last week from the federal court in Northern Indiana dismissed its face a complaint brought by an obscure company that makes “Clean Slate” software, which can be used to wipe all user activity off a computer network. The plaintiff complained that Warner Brothers' The Dark Knight Rises showed […]
Off-label [that is, non-FDA approved] drug use is controversial. Some drug sellers, doctors, and patients think that cautious unapproved drug use advances medical science while helping to mitigate and cure disease, while some consumer advocates thinks it kills and injures patients. Law professors Fazel Kahn and Justin Holloway have written "Verify, then Trust: How to […]
A federal judge in Kentucky approved last week a $40 million class-action settlement between Skechers USA Inc. and consumers who bought Skechers' toning shoes from August 2008 – August 2012. The Skechers' ads made unfounded claims that the shoes would help people lose weight and strengthen muscles. Consumers with approved claims will be paid up […]