Law Commons^™

Digital Market Perfection, Rory Van Loo

Michigan Law Review

Google’s, Apple’s, and other companies’ automated assistants are increasingly serving as personal shoppers. These digital intermediaries will save us time by purchasing grocery items, transferring bank accounts, and subscribing to cable. The literature has only begun to hint at the paradigm shift needed to navigate the legal risks and rewards of this coming era of automated commerce. This Article begins to fill that gap by surveying legal battles related to contract exit, data access, and deception that will determine the extent to which automated assistants are able to help consumers to search and switch, potentially bringing tremendous societal benefits. Whereas …

Intellectual Property In Experience, Madhavi Sunder

Michigan Law Review

In today’s economy, consumers demand experiences. From Star Wars to Harry Potter, fans do not just want to watch or read about their favorite characters— they want to be them. They don the robes of Gryffindor, flick their wands, and drink the butterbeer. The owners of fantasy properties understand this, expanding their offerings from light sabers to the Galaxy’s Edge®, the new Disney Star Wars immersive theme park opening in 2019.Since Star Wars, Congress and the courts have abetted what is now a $262 billion-a-year industry in merchandising, fashioning “merchandising rights” appurtenant to copyrights and trademarks that give fantasy owners …

The Debt Dilemma, Katherine Porter

Michigan Law Review

Part I describes the nature of credit card spending and explores the usefulness of Mann's comparative approach to studying credit cards. Part II evaluates Mann's findings on the overall relationships between individual credit card transactions and aggregate levels of spending, borrowing, and bankruptcy. It also briefly analyzes the relationship between his findings and policy recommendations. Part III explores data on families who refrain from credit card use and struggle with serious financial distress. Part IV revisits Mann's policy recommendations in light of this new data. I conclude that implementing credit card reform would offer families only partial, albeit valuable, protection …

The Hidden Roles Of Boilerplate And Standard-Form Contracts: Strategic Imposition Of Transaction Costs, Segmentation Of Consumers, And Anticompetitive Effects, David Gilo, Ariel Porat

Michigan Law Review

Standard-form contracts offered to consumers contain numerous terms and clauses, most of which are ancillary to the main terms of the transaction. We call these ancillary terms "boilerplate provisions." Since most consumers do not read boilerplate provisions or, if they do, find them hard to understand, courts are suspicious of boilerplate provisions and sometimes find them unenforceable under the doctrine of unconscionability. At times, courts conclude that harsh terms have not been accepted by consumers in the first place and therefore are not included in the contract, and on other occasions courts interpret boilerplate provisions in favor of consumers, applying …

Personal, Living Or Family Matters And The Value Added Tax, L. Hart Wright

Michigan Law Review

No tax is ever implemented in a manner which is perfectly responsive to the logical implications of its basic purpose. VAT is no exception.

Those who foster this tax basically intend that ultimate tax incidence be suffered only by individuals and then only in the degree to which they dip into society's pool of consumer-type goods and services. But their implementing legislation is always designed to fall short of reaching all consumer-type goods and services. Ullman's proposed Tax Restructuring Act of 1979 would have been no exception. Under it, a substantial proportion of all such benefits actually would have been …

Legislative Restriction Of Creditor Powers And Remedies: A Case Study Of The Negotiation And Drafting Of The Wisconsin Consumer Act, Jeffrey Davis

Michigan Law Review

This Article discusses the background, negotiation, and drafting of selected WCA restrictions on creditor powers and remedies and compares those provisions to the analogous restrictions proposed by other reform measures. In addition to the UCCC, the MCCA and the WCA, two other major works must be considered in any discussion of consumer-credit legislation. First is Working Redraft No. 4 of the UCCC (UCCC Redraft). This proposed revision, published in December 1972, represents a marked change in the UCCC. Many provisions favorable to the consumer have been added, and many of the parallel provisions on sales and loans have been consolidated. …

Consumer Credit--The Department Store Revolving Charge Account--Usury Resurrected--State V. J.C. Penney Company, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The Attorney General of Wisconsin recently brought an action against the J.C. Penney retailing chain for an injunction against any further charges of 1½% per month on the declining balances of its revolving charge accounts. The state alleged that anything in excess of I% per month was a violation of the $12 per $100 per annum usury ceiling established by its legislature as the maximum chargeable for a loan or forbearance of money. Penney admitted that its monthly charge frequently exceeded the allowable rate but argued that its charge was a "time-price differential," exempt from statutory control under the time-price …