Consumer Law

From LBN: Interview with Diana Levine's Attorney

Posted on March 19, 2009
Thought I'd share this link to a great interview on Legal Broadcast Network. Scott Drake interviews attorney David C. Frederick about representing Diana Levine in the Supreme Court case Wyeth v. Levine:

?A.I.G.? = ?arrogance, incompetence and greed?

Posted on March 18, 2009
That's what Representative Paul Hodes, Democrat of New Hampshire, said today. Whoa. This A.I.G. mess just gets, well, messier and messier, doesn't it? Overwhelmed? Outraged? Confused? Duped? All of the above? Yeah, you and every other taxpayer/shareholder...

Inter Alia on the Internet – Saint Patrick's Day Edition

Posted on March 17, 2009
I?m neither wearing green, nor planning on drinking green beer.  I?ll make up for it by listening to the new U2 album tonight. Lawyers defending an individual accused of running a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme want to resign due to nonpayment...

A real reason to rejoice: Increase in LSC funding for legal aid!

Posted on March 11, 2009
LSC PRESS RELEASE: LSC Receives $40 Million Increase for FY 2009 Washington, DC?The Legal Services Corporation will receive a $40 million increase in funding for fiscal 2009 as part of an omnibus appropriations bill signed into law by the President on March 11...

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Rejoice! Arbitration Fair! (ahem--kind of, for some people, sometimes, partially, according to one report).

Posted on March 11, 2009
In WSJ Blog we learn that if we aren't doing it yet, consumers better hurry up and take to the streets "rejoicing" about pre-dispute binding mandatory arbitration. Why? Because according to one report, it's "not a bad deal." But for whom? According to the report, under binding mandatory arbitration with the AAA some consumers win part of their award half the time...

Supreme Court Rejects FDA Preemption Unanimously?Nine to Nothing.

Posted on March 09, 2009
I have now read the complete set of opinions in Wyeth v. Levine. While I cannot claim to have followed every nuance, and I?m sure I?ve missed much, certain conclusions seem warranted. The most important one, it seems to me, is this: None of the opinions, either the majority finding nor the dissents, support anything remotely like the kind of broad preemption that has been argued in most of the pro-preemption positions?whether in amici, white papers, or in the Bush FDA?s own pronouncements...

Supreme Court Corp No More?

Posted on March 09, 2009
Here's an interesting read in the Washington Post about trends in the rulings of the current Supreme Court. It suggests that perhaps the Court is more balanced than our pet name (Supreme "Corp" Court) implies. Might we need to modify this term of endearment? Recently the Court has actually made a handful of decisions that represent the interests of ordinary people (like this one and this one, for example)...

Another Reminder Why Wyeth v. Levine is Necessary

Posted on March 05, 2009

Wyeth loses; FDA preemption is not the law of the land.

Posted on March 04, 2009

Maker of Anti Depressants Charged with Fraud

Posted on February 27, 2009

LSC Funding Increase Approved by House

Posted on February 27, 2009

Gitenstein No Longer Considered for OLP

Posted on February 26, 2009
Mark Gitenstein is no longer being considered for head of the Office of Legal Policy. Despite a strong civil rights record, Gitenstein's recent work lobbying for the Chamber of Commerce was a source of serious concern among many consumer advocates and civil justice groups...

In MoJo: how forced arbitration helps franchises commit fraud

Posted on February 26, 2009
We've written time and again about the dangers of pre-dispute binding mandatory arbitration clauses in contracts between people and corporations. And lately this issue has been gaining ground in larger outlets like The Nation and Huffington Post. The most recent article comes from Stephanie Mencimer at Mother Jones (Mencimer has covered this topic extensively in the past)...

Instant Analysis of Obama's Address to Congress

Posted on February 25, 2009
This morning the Drum Major Institute released its analysis of President Obama's budget address to Congress. Here's a bit from the overview: In a little over a month, President Obama has succeeded in advancing remarkable change for Americans striving to attain or hold onto a middle-class standard of living...

Inter Alia on the Internet

Posted on February 24, 2009
I?ve got a long list of articles I?d like to write substantively about.  Considering my law school & mock trial schedule, that isn?t likely to happen for a bit.  In lieu of detail, enjoy another Inter Alia on the Internet: W.R. Grace & Co...

Consumer Groups Oppose Gitenstein

Posted on February 24, 2009
Here's a link to the letter from Public Citizen and other consumer advocacy goups, to Senators Leahy and Specter, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the Obama Administration, raising concerns about the appointment of Mark Gitenstein as the OLP chief...

Just finished watching the Not-SOTU

Posted on February 24, 2009
What energy! What fire! What...what about a wee bit more info about corporate accountability and how we can ensure that, as the President said, these economic stimulus policies will be geared toward helping the people, not just the banks? Would have been nice to hear more about that...

Civil Gideon in the LA Times

Posted on February 23, 2009
This LA Times op ed is the most recent piece of excellent advocacy around Civil Gideon. The author, Professor Clare Pastore of USC Law, also gives a nice shout out to the New York City movement for Civil Gideon for low income Senior citizens in housing court (check them out here), which we've blogged about on TortDeform...

For your bogus media file: more tort "reform" propaganda

Posted on February 19, 2009
Chimps one day, tort "reform" the next. NYPost cartoons are on a roll. You know yesterday's NYPost chimp cartoon (a cozy mix of violent, racist, and insensitive imagery that the Post swears is just a "parody" on current events, even though just about every one else on the planet was offended by it)? Well, the same cartoonist responsible for that cartoon illustrated this tort "reform" gem today: Cartoon by Sean Delonas, published on NYPost Website...

Lobbying against our rights... with our money!

Posted on February 18, 2009
Talk about gutsy... the same corporations that helped create this financial crisis, and are soaking up billions in TARP relief, are now using this taxpayer money to lobby against taxpayers' rights as consumers and employees. In essence, they are using taxpayer money to advance the same objectives of the tort "reform" agenda--less accountability for big business misconduct, and fewer legal protections for the ordinary people affected by it...

Obama's foreclosure plan...

Posted on February 18, 2009
On Huffington Post: Obama unveiled the plan in Arizona, hard-hit by the housing crunch. More expensive than expected, it aims to keep 9 million people from losing their homes. One part will ease refinancing for people who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are currently worth...

Notable Quotable--Marshall on Civil Justice

Posted on February 13, 2009
Sometimes it's just good to take it back to the old school. Here's what Chief Justice John Marshall had to say about the importance of the civil justice system, quoted from his opinion in Marbury v. Madison, (5 U.S. 137, 163 (1803)): "The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the rights of every individual to claim the protection of the law, whenever he receives an injury...

Peanut Guys have nothing to say but "uh oh."

Posted on February 12, 2009
It's probably a good thing those Peanut Processing guys pleaded the fifth at a recent hearing about the salmonella problem. If they didn't, they would have been forced to eat their words. From NYT: Subpoenaed to testify, Stewart Parnell, the president, and Sammy Lightsey, manager of the company?s Georgia plant, instead cited their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination...

For your arbitration horror stories file...

Posted on February 12, 2009
OverruledBlog's Ian Millhiser writes a hard-hitting piece on HuffingtonPost, uncovering more horrific tales of corporate abuses that, although technically illegal, go completely unpunished and even legally protected by what Millhiser describes as the "traps and tricks" of forced arbitration...

Check out this Podcast with TortDeform’s own Kia Franklin

Posted on February 11, 2009
Hat tip to TortsProf.  Kia is apparently too modest to promote herself? This podcast features a conversation with Kia Franklin of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy ("DMI"). Kia is a Senior Fellow in Civil Justice at DMI.  She has published opinion pieces in, among other newspapers, Newsday, The Houston Chronicle and The Washington Post...

Federalist Society Conference on FDA Preemption

Posted on February 11, 2009
I haven?t had a chance to watch this yet, so I can?t yet comment on who is right or wrong.  Since preemption comes up so often here and at my own blog, www.justinian.us, I thought I?d post it. When should FDA Regulation Preempt State Tort Liability? - Event Audio/Video Source: The Federalist Society » Publications - When should FDA Regulation Preempt State Tort Liability? - Event Audio/Video

This is NUTS! Literally. Corporate Bailout trend reaches new heights of insanity.

Posted on February 11, 2009
Also could be titled: "Safety is Too Expensive Business Model, Pt. One Billion Two." Or: "Sure, I'll obey the law, if you give me some money first." Or: "This is nuts! It makes me sick!" You get the point. I am not going to add much to the commentary, except to say that this is just the height of lunacy here...

Despite Ledbetter law, we're still screwed

Posted on February 11, 2009
Cross-posted from The Nation: Screwed by the Fine Print By Kia Franklin February 10, 2009 Despite the new Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, corporations can still get away with employment discrimination and other harmful action through binding mandatory arbitration agreements in which Americans sign away their right to resolve disputes in a court of law...

New Report outlines concerns about our new “regulatory czar”

Posted on February 09, 2009
The biggest concern to me is the first: That cost-benefit analyses can be easily manipulated to achieve desired policy outcomes.  Even if the analyses are manipulated to skew in favor of policies I support, I?d still prefer a better method.   Among the concerns raised in the report, Reinvigorating Protection of Health, Safety, and the Environment: The Choices Facing Cass Sunstein: Sunstein is a stout supporter of cost-benefit analysis as a primary tool for assessing regulations, despite its imprecision and the ease with which it is manipulated to achieve preferred policy outcomes; He supports such cost-benefit approaches as the widely condemned ?senior discount? method for undervaluing the lives of seniors in cost-benefit analyses, an approach even the Bush Administration was forced to disown; He rejects the ?precautionary principle? as a basis for regulating, thus ensuring that dangerous pollutants and products will be given the ?benefit of the doubt,? rather than well-grounded concerns about health and safety; He supports the centralization of authority over regulatory decisions in the White House ? OIRA in particular, even though Congress delegated the exercise of expert judgment to the regulatory agencies, not to OIRA?s staff economists in the White House; and He has written that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration might be unconstitutional...

NYT, "Sins of Omission: The Forgotten Poor"

Posted on February 09, 2009
Hat tip to Legal Services NYC for sharing the link to this NYT Editorial, which I don't know how I missed. It furthers the case for Civil Gideon. Here's an excerpt: The proven national program of civil legal aid for impoverished Americans, created in the 1960s, is suffering from multiple blows in funding...

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