Consumer Law

Minnesota State Senator Linda Scheid v. Consumers

By Sam Glover

This past week, Minnesota Senator Linda Scheid resurrected a stupid, anti-consumer bill she also co-sponsored two years ago. I had hoped we saw the last of the bill when Representative Thissen pulled his support two years ago, but Senator Scheid seems determined to see it done.

Consumer protection laws are practically worthless without attorney fee provisions. That is because consumer protection laws typically provide relatively small statutory penalties—up $1,000 under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, for example—but make it difficult to obtain that penalty without a lawyer. The whole point of attorney fee provisions is to fairly compensate consumer rights attorneys who serve the public by enforcing state and federal consumer protection laws.

Attorney fee provisions have the added benefit of encouraging early, fair settlements in most cases, and discouraging drawn-out, expensive lawsuits over a statutory penalty of a few hundred dollars.

If SF 429 passes, it will have a chilling effect on consumer protection. Consumer rights attorneys will be reluctant to enforce state consumer protection laws, regardless whether claims have merit. Contact your senator or representative—as well as Senator Scheid—and ask them to oppose this anti-consumer bill.

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Full post as published by Caveat Emptor on February 28, 2011 (boomark / email).