by Jeff Sovern I served on a faculty committee this summer that prepared a report with tips for online teaching. The report, which may be useful to law professors, is available here. Here's the abstract: This is a collection of recommendations drawn from a variety of sources, including our colleagues, students, webinars, books, articles, podcasts, […]
by Jeff Sovern The argument that businesses should not be liable to consumers whom they carelessly infect with the coronavirus is based on the claim that if Congress does not outlaw such cases, we will see a tidal wave of lawsuits. Thus far, that argument has no basis in reality. In fact, if anything, consumer […]
Today, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a proposed rule to overturns the “true lender” rule that courts have used since the early 1800s to prevent evasions of state usury laws. The deadline to submit comments on the OCC’s proposal is September 3, 2020. In a statement, the National Consumer Law Center […]
by Jeff Sovern Politico has a summary of the McConnell bill here. It immunizes schools, colleges, charities, and businesses that follow public health guidelines from liability for negligently infecting consumers with the virus. But many public health guidelines are written in terms of what is feasible or possible, meaning that the entities subject to the […]
Shmuel I. Becher of Victoria University of Wellington and Sarah Dadush of Rutgers have written Relationship as Product: Transacting in the Age of Loneliness. Here's the abstract: Behavioral economists and social psychologists distinguish between two main types of relationships. One type is “exchange relationships,” which are based on mutual benefit and economics principles. The second type […]
Vivien Chen of the Monash University – Department of Business Law & Taxation has written Online Payday Lenders: Trusted Friends or Debt Traps? 43 University of New South Wales Law Journal (Advance 2020). Here's the abstract: The recent Senate inquiry into credit and hardship underscored the prevalence of predatory conduct in the payday lending industry. […]
I thought our readers might want to look at an interesting new decision from the Third Circuit about common-law nuisance under Pennsylvania law. The decision is Baptiste v. Bethlehem Landfill Company. The first two paragraphs of the opinion offer a synopsis: Robin and Dexter Baptiste brought an action against the Bethlehem Landfill Company on behalf […]
Law prof Mark Budnitz has written The Restatement of the Law of Consumer Contracts: The American Law Institute's Impossible Dream. Here is the abstract: The American Law Institute has been attempting to write a Restatement of the Law of Consumer Contracts since 2012. The proposed Restatement has gone through ten drafts and has generated considerable […]
by Paul Alan Levy The New York state trial judge who initially granted a temporary restraining order against both Mary Trump and Simon & Schuster declined late today to extend that order into a preliminary injunction. Faced with a welter of arguments put forward by both the defendants in the case as well as by […]
Lots of folks are using hand sanitizer these days. Sometimes it is hard to find hand sanitizers on the shelves or on-line, and there might be an inclination to buy any brand you find. Because there are a bunch of dangerous brands on the market containing methanol (which can be toxic, even life-threatening when ingested), […]