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Consumer Law

CL&P Blog

The contributors to this blog are a diverse group of lawyers and law professors who practice, teach, or write about consumer law and policy. Although the blog is hosted by Public Citizen's Consumer Justice Project, the views expressed here are solely those of the individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions with which they are affiliated.

Post Frequency: 15.1/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 11:13:04

The Good Old Days, When the Big Consumer Protection Problems Were Things Like Spam

Posted on January 19, 2011
Before the subprime meltdown, and its associated consumer protection problems (foreclosures, robosigners, predatory lending, etc.), one of the consumer protection issues that generated the most media attention was spam. Congress enacted the CAN-SPAM Act to deal with it, but sadly,...

HHS Study Finds Up to Half of U.S. Has Pre-Existing Health Conditions

Posted on January 18, 2011
The Department of Health and Human Services will release a study today showing that tens of millions of Americans have pre-existing conditions, according to this article in the Washington Post. Republicans in Congress and the health care industy say the...

Paper on the History of Credit Reporting

Posted on January 18, 2011
Kenneth Lipartito of Florida International University has written The Narrative and the Algorithm: Genres of Credit Reporting from the Nineteenth Century to Today. Here's the abstract: Credit reporting is a contested process whereby parties with distinct interests (borrowers, lenders, and...

One Foreclosure Defense Lawyer's Unusual Tactics

Posted on January 17, 2011
The LA Times reports that California foreclosure defense lawyer Michael Pines advises his clients after their homes have been foreclosed to break into and squat in them. In fact he's done it himself on behalf of clients: "The 58-year-old attorney...

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Lawsuit Loan Sharks?

Posted on January 17, 2011
Check out this New York Times article on the lawsuit loan industry, which loans money to people with pending lawsuits for a cut --- sometimes a huge cut -- of the proceeds if the suit succeeds. The industry is unregulated,...

Foreclosure Reform

Posted on January 16, 2011
Let's assume we can all agree that foreclosures ought be accompanied by proper documentation and that a great many foreclosures accompanying the financial crisis were not. Less clear is what can or should be done about it looking backward. Voiding...

Health Care Reform in 2030

Posted on January 16, 2011
There's no need to work for a single-payer health care system or to worry about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's repeal because Ezra Klein of the Washington Post has written the definitive work on exactly what the health...

Prentiss Cox Paper on Property Assessed Clean Energy Financing Programs

Posted on January 15, 2011
Prentiss Cox of Minnesota was particularly impressive at last May's Teaching Consumer Law Conference in Houston. Now he's written Keeping Pace?: The Case Against Property Assessed Clean Energy Financing Programs. Here's the abstract: Property Assessed Clean Energy (?PACE?) is a...

What Is The Legal Status Of A Property Bought After An Unlawful Foreclosure?

Posted on January 14, 2011
Alan White and I blogged last week about the decision from the Massashusetts Supreme Judicial Court in U.S. Bank v. Ibanez that nixed foreclosures by major banks because the banks could not document title to the properties. Now, Paul McMorrow...

New NCLC Practice Tools

Posted on January 14, 2011
The National Consumer Law Center has just released 16 new NCLC publications, is accepting web registrations for an upcoming Fair Debt conference, and will conduct a January 20 webinar on auto dealer insolvency's impact on consumers. 1. Eight NCLC Treatise...

Consumer Product Safety Commission to Launch Online Consumer Complaint Database

Posted on January 10, 2011
In March, the Consumer Product Safety Commission will launch a web-based public database containing all consumer complaints about products. Previously, much of this information was effectively kept secret under an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act...

OT: Job-Killing Madlibs

Posted on January 10, 2011
by Jeff Sovern I recently spotted this in the office of a politician of a certain party: Want to know how to attack the arguments of the other party? Just describe their proposals as "job-killing." For example, insert the proposal...

Serwin Paper on History of FTC Privacy Enforcement

Posted on January 09, 2011
Andrew B. Serwin of Foley & Lardner has written The Federal Trade Commission and Privacy: Defining Enforcement and Encouraging the Adoption of Best Practices. Here's the abstract: This article examines the history and path of privacy enforcement by the Federal...

Stanley Fish Leads the Charge Against Immunity for Internet Hosts -- But Ignores the Costs

Posted on January 08, 2011
by Paul Alan Levy The New York Times? online edition carries a column by Stanley Fish, touting a book of essays by several law professors who, according to Fish, decry the ease with which offensive accusations and opinions can be...

Will Cars of the Future Prevent Drunk Driving?

Posted on January 08, 2011
The Washington Post reports that Researchers funded by auto manufacturers and federal safety regulators are working on sensory devices - to be installed as standard equipment on all new vehicles - that would keep a vehicle from starting if the...

Massachusetts SJC Voids Foreclosure Sales with Bad Transfers

Posted on January 07, 2011
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court today released its opinion in U.S. Bank v. Ibanez. In two related mortgage cases, the SJC voided nonjudicial foreclosure sales because the securitized trust selling the homes did not have a valid chain of title...

Massachusetts High Court Voids Foreclosures For Lack Of Proper Documentation

Posted on January 07, 2011
Just a few hours ago, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court voided foreclosures by megabanks U.S. Bancorp and Wells Fargo because neither could document title to the properties. As the New York Times explains: In a ruling that may affect foreclosures...

Failure to Include Brake Override Technology Becomes Primary Focus of Toyota Sudden Acceleration Suits

Posted on January 06, 2011
A couple weeks ago, I posted about an individual lawsuit in which the parents of a woman killed in a car crash claimed that the daughter's Toyota suddenly accelerated and forced her car into oncoming traffic. The suit blames the...

Efforts to Repeal Dodd-Frank Start

Posted on January 06, 2011
Michele Bachmann, Republican of Minnesota, seems to be spearheading the effort. Story here.

Pennsylvania Appellate Court Embraces First Amendment Protections for Anonymous Speech

Posted on January 06, 2011
by Paul Alan Levy In a ruling yesterday, the Pennsylvania Superior Court has embraced the majority standard applied by state and federal courts across the country to decide whether a plaintiff in a defamation or other lawsuit should be able...

CRA and Affordable Housing Goals Didn't Cause Crisis

Posted on January 05, 2011
I wrote about this some time ago here. Fed economists Robert Avery & Kenneth Brevort have a new paper out using a sophisticated empirical analysis to compare very similar mortgages that did or did not qualify for Community Reinvestment Act...

Does Credit Scoring Produce a Disparate Impact?

Posted on January 05, 2011
That's the title of a paper by Robert B. Avery, Kenneth P. Brevoort , and Glenn B. Canner, all of the Fed. They answer the question in the negative as to race. Here's the abstract: The widespread use of credit...

Holly Petraeus: Elizabeth Warren's Pick to Head Up Effort to Protect Military Families from Predatory Lending

Posted on January 04, 2011
Read about it here.

Ray Brescia Paper on the Robo-Sign Scandal and UDAP Statutes

Posted on January 04, 2011
Raymond H. Brescia of Albany has written Leverage: State Enforcement Actions in the Wake of the Robo-Sign Scandal. Here's the abstract: In the fall of 2010, in one of the largest scandals to ever hit the American court system, information...

Outgoing Ohio Attorney General to Head Up Enforcement Arm of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Posted on January 03, 2011
I missed this two-week-old news that outgoing Ohio AG Richard Cordray is going to head-up the CFPB's enforcement division, and perhaps you did too. Read about it here and here as well.

New Health Care Provisions Go Into Effect Today

Posted on January 01, 2011
New health care rules go into effect today, as required by the health care overall signed into law by President Obama last March. These rules include requirements on the percentage of premium-based revenue insurers must spend on payouts to consumers....

Is Skype Dead in China?

Posted on January 01, 2011
According to the Washington Post, "China has moved to ban all VoIP services except two state-owned networks, China Unicom and China Telecom, likely making Internet telephony services such as Skype illegal to use." If that's true, and if the ban...

NHTSA Provides Recall Alerts Via Email

Posted on December 30, 2010
Here's a nice new government-sponsored safety alert system. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will now send to any email address notification of recalls for tires, child safety restraints, school buses, motorcyles (and related equipment), and all passenger vehicles...

Courts address a section 230 question that seems hard at first blush? what happens after a defamation plaintiff wins against the poster?

Posted on December 30, 2010
by Paul Alan Levy We have previously blogged about the crucial role played by section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in protecting the ability of consumers to speak effectively about corporate or political wrongdoing, by protecting the hosts of...

Elizabeth Warren Is Looking for a CFPB Head

Posted on December 30, 2010
The Wall Street Journal reports that Elizabeth Warren is consulting with business and consumer groups to find someone to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The implication is that the President is likely to be influenced by Warren's recommendations...

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