Consumer Law

For renters facing eviction due to landlord's foreclosure

Posted on December 26, 2008
Here's something that hasn't been pointed out very often in the midst of all the foreclosure crisis finger pointing: what's going to happen to all the renters who, paying faithfully each month, may nevertheless find themselves displaced from their rental homes because their landlords go into foreclosure? From the LA Times: You're paying your bills, but your landlord isn't...

This Bextra lawsuit shows the injustice in preempting lawsuits against pharmaceuticals

Posted on December 24, 2008
As regular Tortdeform readers know, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to decide the case of Wyeth v. Levine, a case involving a woman whose arm had to be amputated because of an anti-nausea drug.  Diana Levine?s lawsuit is called a failure-to-warn lawsuit; she argues that Wyeth should have included a stronger warning that administering the drug a certain way can cause gangrene...

New Coverage of Bush Admin's end run around Consumer Justice

Posted on December 23, 2008
Hat tip to the folks over at ThePopTort for providing a link to this Keith Olbermann coverage of Bush's shady federal preemption work: .msnbcLinks {font-size:11px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #999; margin-top: 5px; background: transparent; text-align: center; width: 425px;} ...

Economic crisis freezes civil justice system

Posted on December 22, 2008
My neighbor passed my house in Seattle on skis today. People don't know what to do here when it snows more than three inches. In light of the stormy weather, I thought this article's title, Even jury hiring is frozen, was particularly timely. But what really got my attention from the article is the following: The economic storm has come to this: Justice is being delayed or disrupted in state courtrooms across the country...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

NYT Weighs in on Ruling Against Big Tobacco

Posted on December 16, 2008
I wanted to draw folks' attention to a great op ed in the New York Times, a follow up to yesterday's Supreme Court Ruling against Big Tobacco's fight to stay out of court over allegations of deceptive marketing. I encourage readers to read it entirely, but surely no one should be surprised that I want to highlight the following gem-of-a-line from the piece: In recent years, the Supreme Court has issued a series of rulings ? on everything from punitive damages to the criminal case against Enron?s accounting firm ? that have made it harder for ordinary Americans to hold corporate wrongdoers accountable...

Corpreform domain gone… please update your links and emails accordingly…

Posted on December 16, 2008
Through entirely my own fault, Corpreform.com expired and I no longer own it.  I?ve approached the new owner to see what he wants for the domain, but I?m not hopeful he?ll offer it to me at a price I can afford. Five years of work in building Google rankings, reciprocal links, etc...

Supreme Court Strikes the Match Against Big Tobacco's Preemption Argument

Posted on December 15, 2008
In a 5-4 decision (Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer), the Supreme Court struck down the preemption arguments of Altria, maker of Marlboro lights, which would have shielded Big Tobacco from smokers' deceptive advertising lawsuits under Maine state law...

Civil Gideon and Human Rights

Posted on December 11, 2008
Yesterday was Human Rights Day and the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So I thought I'd point you to yet another great post to check out, published by Kevin Hsu of the Opportunity Agenda. Thinking about Kevin's post in reference to the movement for Civil Gideon, I think about the fact that these basic human needs can easily be articulated as human rights...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.