Consumer Law

Georgia State University Law Review Articles on Consumer Law

By Jeff Sovern

Longtime consumer law professor Mark Budnitz's home law review, Georgia State University Law Review, has published a quintet of consumer law articles, including an article by Mark himself, The Development of Consumer Protection Law, the Institutionalization of Consumerism, and Future Prospects and Perils.  The others include Kathleen E. Keest, Consumer Financial Services Law and Policy: 1968-20?? In the Thick of the Battlefield for America's Economic Soul; Alvin C. Harrell, The Great Credit Contraction: Who, What, When, Where and Why; and Fred Miller, Prime Interest Rates for Subprime Borrowers?.   I could find only one on the web, a piece by Peter A. Alces of William & Mary and Michael M. Greenfield of Washington University, titled They Can Do What!? Limitations on the Use of Change-of-Terms Clauses, with the following abstract:

Almost every contract that calls for ongoing services to consumers contains a provision that authorizes the provider of those services to modify the contract at any time, without any constraint on the modification. With some exceptions, the courts have not been very responsive to arguments that seek to enforce constraints on the provider?s discretion. In the recently enacted Credit CARD Act, Congress has declared that there are indeed some limits on the changes that may be made to one kind of ongoing consumer contract, viz., a contract to provide open-end credit. In this article, to be published in a forthcoming symposium issue of the Georgia State Law Review, we review several statutory rules and common-law doctrines that suggest limits, applicable to all kinds of consumer contracts, on the freedom of service providers to change the terms of the contract  

The articles appear in volume 26, number 4.

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on July 12, 2010 (boomark / email).