Consumer Law

CL&P Roundup

By Deepak Gupta

by Deepak Gupta

• Michigan Supreme Court Holds Foreclosure Unconstitutional: I've written here before about the issue of foreclosure notice procedures -- whether homeowners are getting constitutionally sufficient notice of tax or mortgage foreclosures.  In March, I argued a case raising that issue in the Michigan Supreme Court and last week, I'm thrilled to report, the Court issued a unanimous opinion overturning the tax foreclosure of our client's house for lack of proper notice; the government had the owner's address in its records, but failed to send notice there even after the notice mailed the wrong address was returned unclaimed.

• Ninth Circuit Rejects Debt Collector's Reliance-on-Creditor Defense: Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit issued a precedential opinion rejecting a debt collector's defense that it was not responsible for attempting to collect illegal charges because it had "reasonably relied" on its creditor-client.  As the court put it, "A debt collector is not entitled under the FDCPA to sit back and wait until a creditor makes a mistake and then institute procedures to prevent a recurrence," but must affirmatively maintain preventive procedures and demonstrate the maintenance of those procedures in a non-conclusory way.  This, too, was one of our cases. So far, July has been a great month for Public Citizen's Consumer Justice Project!

• Class-Action Bans and Dodo Birds:  We've already blogged about the New Mexico Supreme Court's terrific opinion striking down yet another class-action ban, and the U.S. Supreme Court's recent refusal to weigh in on the issue. In the Wall Street Journal, reporter Nathan Koppell had a story discussing how the New Mexico decision fits into a strong trend in the state and federal courts.  This leads the Journal's law blog to ask, "Are Class-Action Bans Going the Way of the Dodo?"

• Fresh Air on Credit Report Errors: In the post below, Brian mentioned Elizabeth Warren's interview on NPR last week. Professor Warren has also written this blog post with some further reflections on the interview, including Gross's personal story about the ordeal that she and her husband went through to remove major errors found in her husband's credit report. 

• The Credit Crunch:  Also on NPR last week, All Things Considered aired this story featuring Robert Manning, author of Credit Card Nation: America?s Dangerous Addiction to Credit and director of the Center for Consumer Financial Services, discussing the effect of the credit crunch on consumers and credit card firms.

• Newsweek on Predatory Lending: Newsweek has a new article on the rise in predatory lending practices that target consumers with shaky credit.

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on July 08, 2008 (boomark / email).