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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

In the Wake of Citizens United, Corporations Want to Fund Campaign Ads . . . Anonymously

Posted on June 01, 2010
The Washington Post explains today: After a landmark Supreme Court ruling [in Citizens United] this year freed executives to spend unlimited corporate cash on campaigns, some predicted that businesses would flood television airwaves with pro-industry political ads -- but that...

Comparing the Senate and House CFPA/B Bills

Posted on May 28, 2010
by Jeff Sovern Last week at the University of Houston's Teaching Consumer Law Conference (presided over by fellow-blogger Richard Alderman) I spoke about the House and Senate Consumer Financial Protection Agency (or Bureau) bills and their differences and similarities...

7500 Consumers' Failure to Read Contracts Leads them to Sell Their Souls

Posted on May 28, 2010
Story here. Still more proof that consumers don't read contracts. I guess the devil really is in the details. (HT: Concurring Opinions Blog)

The Senate CFPA Bill, as Amended on the Floor . . .

Posted on May 27, 2010
. . . can be found here.

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Is Lack of Regulation at the Root of Our Economic and Health & Safety Woes?

Posted on May 26, 2010
Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein says yes. He begins this way: The biggest oil spill ever. The biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression. The deadliest mine disaster in 25 years. One recall after another of toys from China,...

"It's Me Fraud"

Posted on May 25, 2010
by Jeff Sovern Those of us at the University of Houston Teaching Consumer Law Conference last week were treated to a report on a type of fraud I personally had never heard of and that is so new, it goes...

Some Tidbits on the Constitutionality of the Health Care Legislation's "Tax" or "Penalty" or "Fee" for Not Participating

Posted on May 25, 2010
As many of you know, the health care legislation's so-called mandate on participation and its tax (or penalty or fee) for not participating has raised a constitutional ruckus. Most (but not all) of that debate has centered on whether the...

Nature Conservancy Took Millions from BP

Posted on May 25, 2010
Why do we care that politicians take money from big corporations or their executives? Why are we concerned when scientists take money for research from the companies whose products they are testing for safety or efficacy? Well, to state the...

Brownback Motion Succeeds

Posted on May 24, 2010
Senator Brownback's motion to instruct the Senate conferees on the CFPA/B bill to exclude auto dealers from the bill passed by a vote of 60-30. The breakdown is here.

Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Class-Action Ban Issue

Posted on May 24, 2010
by Deepak Gupta Back in May 2008, I wrote a blog post that began like this: A cutting-edge issue in the world of consumer law--and one that this blog has discussed many times before . . . is the extent...

Maryland Nursing Home Arbitration Victory

Posted on May 24, 2010
In a really nice opinion, the Maryland Court of Appeals has held that a nursing home could not force the estate of a man allegedly killed by the nursing home's gross negligence to arbitrate claims based on a contract signed...

Credit Card Contract Collection

Posted on May 24, 2010
by Jeff Sovern The Credit CARD Act required the Fed to post online copies of credit card contracts. The Fed has now posted more than 1200 such contracts from 276 issuers (including large issuers like Chase, Citibank, and Capitol One)...

The Financial Reform's Effect on Consumers: Debit and Credit Cards, The Consumer Financial Protection Agency, Mortgages, Brokers' Duty to Consumers, and Credit Scores

Posted on May 22, 2010
This New York Times article explains the financial reform legislation's provisions having a direct effect on consumers. Some are in the House bill; some in the Senate bill; some in both. The House bill requires brokers to act as fiduciaries...

Financial Reform Legislation -- Comparing the House and Senate Bills

Posted on May 22, 2010
Today's New York Times has this informative piece explaining the major differences between the House and Senate financial reform bills that will have to be reconciled before the legislation is enacted. And here's a chart on the major provisions of...

Foreclosures: Not Getting any Better

Posted on May 21, 2010
While most of the media covered the monthly Realtytrac numbers released last week, the more reliable quarterly Mortgage Bankers National Delinquency Survey was released Wednesday, and the news is all bad. The seasonally-adjusted total of mortgages in foreclosure or default...

More on the Financial Reform Legislation Passed Last Night by the Senate

Posted on May 21, 2010
Following up on last night's post on the 59-39 Senate passage of financial reform legislation, just a few more items of possible interest: Go here and here for the text of the legislation, amendments, and legislative history on the Senate...

CFPA Debate in the Senate Hits the Final Stretch

Posted on May 20, 2010
by Deepak Gupta A little over an hour ago, the Senate agreed to end debate over the financial reform bill within the next 30 hours. The vote to invoke cloture was 60 to 40, with GOP New Englanders Olympia Snowe,...

What Dilution by Tarnishment Is Really About

Posted on May 20, 2010
by Paul Alan Levy Over the years, we at Public Citizen have been hostile to the doctrine of dilution, and especially dilution by tarnishment, because it distorts trademark law from its legitimate function ? protecting consumers from dishonest marketing techniques...

Hot News Decision from New York Is Stayed Pending Appeal

Posted on May 20, 2010
by Paul Alan Levy Flyonthewall.com has secured a stay from the Second Circuit, pending appeal of the injunction that forbids it from promptly reporting on investment firms' stock recommendations, based on Judge Cote's "hot news" ruling this past March...

Senate Passes Wall Street Reform, 59-39; Auto Dealer Exemption and Volcker Rule Both Fail; Independent CFPA Likely

Posted on May 20, 2010
by Deepak Gupta By a vote of 59-39 tonight, the Senate passed sweeping legislation to tighten the rules governing the U.S. financial system. President Obama, speaking from the Rose Garden, called the reforms the ?strongest consumer protections in history...

Tom Corbett -- The Hypocrisy of Some Who Sue to Keep the Government Out of Our Private Lives

Posted on May 19, 2010
by Paul Alan Levy Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett, who is running for governor, in part, based on his having sued to block the new health care bill on the theory that it puts the federal government too much into...

CNN.Com Piece: Let States Set Consumer Protections

Posted on May 18, 2010
Here. The essay opposes attempts to amend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau bill now on the Senate floor to preempt state consumer protection laws and enforcement actions

New NCLC Practice Tools

Posted on May 17, 2010
This update lists free webinars, new publications and other new NCLC practice tools: 1. Two Upcoming Webinars on Auto Issues: Collision or Intersection? Car Ownership and Energy and Environmental Concerns on May 20th and Transportation and an Aging America on...

The Failure of HAMP - Update

Posted on May 17, 2010
By Alan White Treasury released the April report on the HAMP mortgage modification program today. The tally for April is 68,000 permanent modifications, still well short of what the industry was doing without HAMP subsidies a year ago. According to...

Restoring State Law

Posted on May 17, 2010
by Jeff Sovern Cross-posted with the New Deal 2.0 Blog When our founding fathers fought the Revolution, one of the things they fought for was the right to have a say in the laws that governed them. And they achieved...

President Obama Continues to Push Hard for Financial Reform

Posted on May 15, 2010
President Obama is making financial reform legislation a large priority. As you'll see below, he made it the topic of today's weekly radio address. He did the same on March 20.

Battle Over D.C. Soda Tax Heats Up

Posted on May 14, 2010
A couple weeks ago I blogged about a far-reaching school nutrition proposal expected to pass the District of Columbia Council and a controversial plan to pay for its implementation with a 1-cent-per-ounce tax on soda. (The tax would be imposed...

Senate Passes Amendment to Financial Reform Legislation to Require Audit of Federal Reserve

Posted on May 12, 2010
Yesterday, the Senate passed 96 to zip an amendment written by Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont (pictured to the right) to require an audit of the Federal Reserve. Senator Sanders's website describes the amendment and its passage as follows:...

Media Coverage of the Battle Between Auto Dealers and the Military Over the CFPA

Posted on May 12, 2010
The Times story is here and the Washington Post's coverage here.

Taxes Are High and Getting Higher, Right? Nope. Just the Opposite.

Posted on May 11, 2010
Tax policy generally affects consumers a lot, yet this blog has paid little attention to it. A USA Today analysis has found that the combined federal, state, and local tax bite recently hit its lowest point since the Truman Administration....

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