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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

California passes 90-day Foreclosure Moratorium

Posted on February 24, 2009
Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill Tuesday imposing a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures in California. The bill exempts lenders who have a modification program in place meeting standards set forth in the bill, including reduction of payments to 38% of a...

Spring 2009 Issue of Journal of Consumer Affairs Table of Contents

Posted on February 24, 2009
The Spring issue of the Journal of Consumer Affairs is available here. It includes an article by Jef I. Richards titled Common Fallacies in Law-Related Consumer Research. Here's the table of contents: Editorial Prelude: Looking Forward by Looking Back State...

Libel Tourism Hits a New Low

Posted on February 23, 2009
by Paul Alan LevyA currently developing situation represents a new low for ?libel tourism? ? the practice of bringing libel claims against United States defendants in foreign courts where the First Amendment and other provisions of US law that protect...

January 2009 NHTSA and CPSC Recalls

Posted on February 21, 2009
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recalls for January 2009 are here. The Consumer Product Safety Commission recalls for January 2009 are here.

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Insult to Injury

Posted on February 20, 2009
The AP reports on a new trend: states making deals with banks to impose fees for access to unemployment benefits.

Blockshopper Settles Jones Day?s Trademark Linking Suit ? What Are the Lessons? What Can We Do Now?

Posted on February 20, 2009
by Paul Alan LevyLate last week, lawyers for Jones Day filed a stipulation of dismissal of its trademark claims against Blockshopper. The lawsuit alleged that, by providing links to lawyer bio pages on the Jones Day web site from anchor...

Standing Up to Facebook's Terms of Use

Posted on February 18, 2009
How do companies get away with slipping arbitration clauses and other abusive terms into their contracts? For one thing, they rely on the fact that most people do not have the time or motivation to read all the fine print,...

Stephen Baker's The Numerati

Posted on February 18, 2009
by Jeff Sovern I've been listening to the audio version of Stephen Baker's fascinating book The Numerati, and while I'm not done with it, I thought I would blog about some of what I've encountered in it thus far, as...

Obama Administration Plan to Help Borrowers Takes Shape

Posted on February 17, 2009
The Times is reporting here on some aspects of President Obama's plan to help borrowers facing foreclosure. An excerpt: President Obama?s plan to reduce the flood of home foreclosures will include a mix of government inducements and new pressure on...

Second Circuit Upholds New York Fast-Food Menu Rule

Posted on February 17, 2009
by Deepak Gupta I'm delighted that the Second Circuit has decided to uphold New York City?s landmark fast-food menu rule, which requires chain restaurants to disclose calorie information on their menus. (We previously blogged about the district court's decision here...

Experian-Based FICO Scores to be Unavailable to Consumers

Posted on February 16, 2009
by Jeff Sovern Fair Isaac has reported that Experian has terminated their agreement under which FICO credit scores based on Experian's credit data can be made available to consumers, though consumers can still obtain their FICO scores based on TransUnion...

Marotta-Wurgler Study Finds Firms With Market Power Don't Impose One-Sided Terms on Consumers in Software License Agreements

Posted on February 15, 2009
Florencia Marotta-Wurgler of NYU has written Competition and the Quality of Standard Form Contracts: The Case of Software License Agreements, 5 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (2008). Here's the abstract: Standard form contracts are pervasive. Many legal academics believe that...

Senseless Foreclosure Story: Bernanke Home

Posted on February 14, 2009
The Wall Street Journal reports today on the foreclosure sale of Chairman Bernanke's childhood home in South Carolina. The couple that lost the home, a National Guard soldier and a Wal-Mart store assistant manager, bought it with a subprime mortgage....

Moral hazard and adverse selection redux

Posted on February 14, 2009
By Alan WhiteThe Administration's foreclosure rescue plan, expected to be announced next week, will have to contend with the bad incentives it will create for mortgage lenders and servicers. While much ink has been spilled about moral hazard for borrowers,...

Times Reports on Identity Theft Risks, Foreclosure Crisis, Privacy Policies, and More

Posted on February 14, 2009
by Jeff Sovern Lots in the Times this week on consumer law issues, so here goes. Tomorrow's Times will include Bob Tedeschi's Mortgages column, Your Financial Data: How Safe is it? about a Wolters Kluwer Financial Services of Minneapolis survey...

Marotta-Wurgler Study finds Rolling Software License Agreements Are No More One-Sided Than Others

Posted on February 13, 2009
Florencia Marotta-Wurgler of NYU has written Are 'Pay Now, Terms Later' Contracts Worse for Buyers? Evidence from Software License Agreements, 38 J. Legal Studies -- (2009). Here's the abstract: The rise of commerce over the Internet and telephone has led...

Update - January's Subprime Mortgage Modifications

Posted on February 13, 2009
By Alan White Mortgage modifications in January continued converting risky subprime loans into risky modified loans. Negative amortization and temporary rate reductions with future rate shock remain common in modifications. Here is my summary of the January 25 investor reports...

Journal of Consumer Education Now Available Online

Posted on February 11, 2009
The Journal of Consumer Education (JCE) is now available as a full-text electronic journal beginning with Volume 1 here. As a sample of its issues, here is the table of contents for volume 24, dated 2007: Gift Card Practices and...

New Javelin Report Finds 22% Increase in Identity Theft Victims

Posted on February 10, 2009
by Jeff Sovern Javelin's latest identity fraud survey, released yesterday, contains, at best, mixed news on the progress made in preventing and detecting identity fraud. Here's the first paragraph of the press release: The 2009 Identity Fraud Survey Report ?...

Ten New NCLC Publications with Companion Websites

Posted on February 09, 2009
Automatic subscribers to NCLC manuals by now have received their updates: two revised editions, six supplements and a new Consumer Law Pleadings. All 18 consumer law manuals now come with companion websites, including an updated Consumer Law on the Web...

New 50 State UDAP Report Card

Posted on February 09, 2009
A new report by the National Consumer Law Center: ?Consumer Protection in the States: A 50-State Report on Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices Statutes,? issued February 5, 2009, analyzes and summarizes unfair and deceptive acts and practices (UDAP) laws...

NCLC Report on Credit Report Dispute System

Posted on February 08, 2009
by Jeff Sovern The National Consumer Law Center released a report authored by Chi Chi Wu last week, Automated Injustice: How a Mechanized Dispute System Frustrates Consumers Seeking to Fix Errors in Their Credit Reports, that charges that Equifax, Experian,...

The Wrong Foreclosure Plan

Posted on February 06, 2009
By Alan WhiteAll indications are that the Administration will announce a foreclosure plan next week that consists largely of throwing taxpayer money at investor losses. This is as wrong-headed as it could possibly be.Absent from all discussions are any proposals...

National Motor Vehicle Title Information System Begins

Posted on February 04, 2009
Last Friday, the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System began operations. The database is to list cars that have been determined to be too badly damaged to be worth repairing or that were stolen, so that consumers can avoid buying...

The impending sell-out

Posted on February 04, 2009
The Naked Capitalism blog has an excellent discussion today of why the Administration's likely plan to rescue banks is a rescue for shareholders and bondholders and a disaster for taxpayers.

Ben-Shahar on the Opportunity to Read Contracts

Posted on February 03, 2009
Omri Ben-Shahar of Chicago has written The Myth of the 'Opportunity to Read' in Contract Law. Here's the abstract: Standard form contracts in consumer transactions are usually not read by consumers. This "unreadness" of contracts creates opportunities for drafters to...

Self-Promoting Post

Posted on February 02, 2009
OK, it's not consumer law, but I had another letter in the Times today. Here it is: To the Editor: Why not bar banks taking bailout money from giving any employee compensation exceeding some extremely comfortable amount, say $250,000 a...

Fed Proposes to Bar Banks From Automatically Enrolling Customers in Overdraft Protection Plans

Posted on February 02, 2009
The Fed has proposed an amendment to Regulation E and the accompanying commentary that would bar banks from enrolling consumers in their overdraft protection plans without customer approval. The proposal is available here. Comments are due by March 30...

Second Circuit Decision Strikes Down Class Action Arbitration Ban

Posted on January 30, 2009
In In re American Express Merchants' Litigation, No. 06-1871 (2d Cir. Jan. 30, 2009), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit today struck down an arbitration clause that banned any type of class or representative litigation. The Second...

Fox News Backs Away from Copyright Claim Against ProgressIllinois.com -- For Now

Posted on January 30, 2009
by Paul Alan LevyFox News, which filed DMCA takedown notices late last year against three excerpts showing significant remarks by political figures during news interviews that were posted by ProgressIllinois.com on YouTube, as well as the Progress Illinois blog, has...

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