Many states bar super-high interest rates. But high-cost lenders can circumvent such limits, known as usury caps, through rent-a-bank schemes. And under the Trump administration, the schemes have gotten a boost from two rules approved this year by the top federal banking regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Focusing on a small […]
David Berman has written A Critique of Consumer Advocacy Against the Restatement of the Law of Consumer Contracts, 54 Columbia Journal of Law & Social Problems. Here is the abstract: In May 2019, the American Law Institute proposed adopting a Restatement of the Law of Consumer Contracts. In it, the Restatement’s Reporters suggested a “grand […]
My colleague, Sheldon Evans of St. John's, has written Pandora's Loot Box. Here's the abstract: Virtual worlds are a frontier unlike any other. But as virtual worlds grow exponentially in the internet age, they find more overlap with the real world and the laws that govern it. One such emerging intersection is the advent of […]
by Paul Alan Levy Although Maryland was one of the first states to adopt an anti-SLAPP law, its weaknesses have become apparent over the years as other states have adopted stronger protections against suits brought to suppress free speech. Two of the most important obstacles to effectiveness of the statutes are found in the statute’s […]
by Jeff Sovern Here, though the report on liability is not very detailed and so perhaps it is less bad than I fear. But if not, as I have written in a different context, this is a terrible idea and will lead to more people getting the virus.
Dee Pridgen of Wyoming has written ALI's Restatement of the Law of Consumer Contracts: Perpetuating a Legal Fiction? 32 Loyola Consumer Law Review No. 3, (2020). Here's the abstract: The American Law Institute’s proposed Restatement of the Law of Consumer Contracts has undergone a lengthy process of drafts and discussions, but the road to completion has […]
Uri Benoliel of Ramat Gan Law School and Shmuel I. Becher of Victoria University of Wellington have written Termination Without Explanation Contracts. Here is the abstract: Firms routinely terminate their contractual relationship with consumers. During 2019-2020, for example, Facebook terminated 5.4 billion accounts that were supposedly fake; WhatsApp announced that it is terminating 2 million […]
by Paul Alan Levy A couple of months ago, South Carolina lawyer B. Craig Killough advanced vague intellectual property claims in objecting to a blog post by a California health policy expert who commented on some aspects of the pricing policies being followed by Palmetto GBA, one of the companies retained by the federal Centers […]
Law prof Betsy Grey and law student Samantha Orwoll have written Tort Immunity in the Pandemic. Here is the abstract: A fundamental premise of our common law tort system is that the risk of liability will help deter unsafe behavior. Yet, as we continue to battle the COVID-19 pandemic, proposals abound to shield businesses from […]
FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra and his attorney-advisor Samuel A.A. Levine have wiritten The Case for Resurrecting the FTC Act’s Penalty Offense Authority. Here is the abstract: This article details why the Federal Trade Commission should resurrect one of the key authorities it abandoned in the 1980s: Section 5(m)(1)(B) of the FTC Act, the Penalty Offense […]