Law Commons^™

Regulation With Placebo Effects, Anup Malani

Duke Law Journal

A growing scientific literature supports the existence of placebo effects from a wide range of health interventions and for a range of medical conditions. This Article reviews this literature, examines the implications for law and policy, and suggests future areas for research on placebo effects. In particular, it makes the case for altering the drug approval process to account for, if not credit, placebo effects. It recommends that evidence of placebo effects be permitted as a defense in cases alleging violations of informed consent or false advertising. Finally, it finds that tort law already has doctrines such as joint and …

The Fundamental Goal Of Antitrust: Protecting Consumers, Not Increasing Efficiency, John B. Kirkwood, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

The conventional wisdom in the antitrust community is that the purpose of the antitrust laws is to promote economic efficiency. That view is incorrect. As this article shows, the fundamental goal of antitrust law is to protect consumers.

This article defines the relevant economic concepts, summarizes the legislative histories, analyzes recent case law in more depth than any prior article, and explores the most likely bases for current popular support of the antitrust laws. All these factors indicate that the ultimate goal of antitrust is not to increase the total wealth of society, but to protect consumers from behavior that …

The Content Of Consumer Law Classes, Jeff Sovern

Faculty Publications

Attendees at the University of Houston Law Center Conference titled Teaching Consumer Law: The Who, What, Where, Why, When and How were surveyed to determine what topics they covered in consumer law classes. Twenty-five responses were received, representing fourteen survey classes, five clinics, and six miscellaneous responses. The responses indicated considerable diversity in the topics covered. No topic was covered by more than 21 professors and each of the 32 topics listed on the survey instrument was discussed by at least four professors. Under the circumstances, it seems difficult to claim that consumer protection classes have a canon agreed upon …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Former Fda Commissioners Dr. Donald Kennedy And Dr. David A. Kessler In Support Of Respondent, Wyeth V. Levine, No. 06-1249 (U.S. Aug. 14, 2008), Kathryn A. Sabbeth, David C. Vladeck

U.S. Supreme Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

How The Government Can Protect Home Mortgage Consumers: A Proposal To Provide Consumers A Risk Assessment Of Mortgages, Adeline Park

Adeline Park

The recent sub-prime mortgage crisis has revealed the consumer’s vulnerability in the home mortgage marketplace. Consumers face an overwhelming variety of mortgage options, and are not motivated to invest the necessary time and resources to comprehend the meaning and implications of each loan feature. I propose that the government assess the risk of each loan feature available in the home mortgage market, based on the historical number of foreclosures each loan type has yielded. The government will then require lenders to display the risk assessment icon on all sales, marketing, and advertising materials. The risk assessment icon will identify the …

Should Fda Drug And Medical Device Regulation Bar State Liability Claims?: Hearing Before The H. Comm. On Oversight And Government Reform, 110th Cong., May 14, 2008 (Statement Of Professor David C. Vladeck, Geo. U. L. Center), David C. Vladeck

Testimony Before Congress

No abstract provided.

Uniformity And Diversity In Payment Systems, Clayton P. Gillette, Steven D. Walt

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The rules governing the transfer of value between users of payment systems differ among payment systems. Rules allocating loss from unauthorized payment, erroneous payment, and the reversibility of payment vary according to whether payment is made by check, credit or debit card, wholesale wire transfer, or letter of credit. Thirty-five years after the New Payments Code failed to attract enough support to become law, academics and practitioners recently have proposed that payment system rules be uniform. This Article rejects this initially attractive position. It argues that the optimal standardization of payment system rules allows diverse rules among payment systems. The …

Measuring Identity Theft At Top Banks (Version 1.5), Chris Hoofnagle

Chris Jay Hoofnagle

There is no reliable way for consumers, regulators, and businesses to assess the relative rates of identity fraud at major financial institutions. This lack of information prevents a consumer market for bank safety from emerging. As part of a multiple strategy approach to obtaining more actionable data on identity theft, the Freedom of Information Act was used to obtain complaint data submitted by victims in 2006 to the Federal Trade Commission. This complaint data identifies the institution where impostors established fraudulent accounts or affected existing accounts in the name of the victim. The data were aggregated and used to create …

The Credit Cardholders' Bill Of Rights: Providing New Protections For Consumers: Hearings Before The Subcomm. On Financial Institutions And Consumer Credit Of The H. Comm. On Financial Services, 110th Cong., Mar. 13, 2008 (Statement Of Professor Adam Levitin, Geo. U. L. Center), Adam J. Levitin

Testimony Before Congress

No abstract provided.

Law And Online Social Networks: Mapping The Challenges And Promises Of User-Generated Information Flows, Tal Z. Zarsky

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Microsoft-Yahoo Merger: Yes, Privacy Is An Antitrust Concern, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

Privacy and antitrust? Isn't antitrust only supposed to be concerned with price? Well, no. Antitrust is actually about consumer choice, and price is only one type of choice. The ultimate purpose of the antitrust laws is to help ensure that the free market will bring to consumers everything they want from competition. This starts with competitive prices, of course, but consumers also want an optimal level of variety, innovation, quality, and other forms of non-price competition. Including, in the Google-Doubleclick and Microsoft-Yahoo transactions, privacy protection.

Imperfect Competition In Auto Lending: Subjective Markup, Racial Disparity, & Class Action Litigation, Mark A. Cohen

Mark A Cohen

While the market for auto lending at first appears to be highly competitive, many consumers lack the ability to obtain accurate information about price. In many markets, uninformed consumers can “free ride” off the knowledge of informed consumers. However, the market for auto lending differs from traditional markets because price ultimately depends upon both the credit worthiness of the individual borrower and the details of the auto loan (e.g. term length, payment-to-income ratio, etc.). Auto dealers in this market act as agents of both consumers (identifying suitable auto lenders) and auto lenders (identifying prospective borrowers). Given the asymmetric information about …

Imperfect Competition In Auto Lending: Subjective Markup, Racial Disparity, And Class Action Litigation, Mark A. Cohen

Mark A Cohen

While the market for auto lending at first appears to be highly competitive, many consumers lack the ability to obtain accurate information about price. In many markets, uninformed consumers can “free ride” off the knowledge of informed consumers. However, the market for auto lending differs from traditional markets because price ultimately depends upon both the credit worthiness of the individual borrower and the details of the auto loan (e.g. term length, payment-to-income ratio, etc.). Auto dealers in this market act as agents of both consumers (identifying suitable auto lenders) and auto lenders (identifying prospective borrowers). Given the asymmetric information about …

The Chicago School Virus, Spencer Weber Waller

Spencer Weber Waller

The Chicago School of Law and Economics is a leading example of a highly successful legal ideology. As one recent commentator has noted: "[T]he basic characteristic of the Chicago School is the belief that free markets and the price mechanism are the most effective and desirable ways for a society to organize production and economic life in general." The Chicago School of Law and Economics applies these insights to legal questions and views the creation and enforcement of legal rules primarily in terms of how legal rules and institutions promote allocative efficiency and wealth maximization.

While much ink has been …

Brief Of Amicus Curiae Aarp In Support Of Respondents, Warner-Lambert Company Llc V. Kent, No. 06-1498 (U.S. Jan. 18, 2008), Kathryn A. Sabbeth, David C. Vladeck

U.S. Supreme Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

Developing An Antitrust Injury Requirement For Injunctive Relief That Reflects The Probability Of Anticompetitive Harm, Yavar Bathaee

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.

Point And Click: E-Commerce Consumer Protection In Italy, Marco Bassini

ILSU Working Paper Series

The paper contains an analysis of the efforts undertaken by the Italian legislator in the last few decades – spurred also by the enactment of European directives on the matter – to establish a progressively more precise, but ultimately stratified and precarious, regulatory framework with respect to a phenomenon in great expansion: electronic commerce, which offers a clear exemplification of the difficulties that characterize the complex relationship between law and technology.

Highlighting the immanent limits and problems with respect to the legislator’s choices, prominence has particularly been given to the difficulties arising from an obstinate application of general rules to …

Point And Click: E-Commerce Consumer Protection In Italy, Marco Bassini

Bocconi Legal Papers

The paper contains an analysis of the efforts undertaken by the Italian legislator in the last few decades – spurred also by the enactment of European directives on the matter – to establish a progressively more precise, but ultimately stratified and precarious, regulatory framework with respect to a phenomenon in great expansion: electronic commerce, which offers a clear exemplification of the difficulties that characterize the complex relationship between law and technology.

Highlighting the immanent limits and problems with respect to the legislator’s choices, prominence has particularly been given to the difficulties arising from an obstinate application of general rules to …

Confusion And Convergence In Consumer Payments: Is Coherence In Error Resolution Appropriate?, Anita Ramasastry

Articles

At present, there are no uniform rules governing retail payment systems in the United States. Checks, credit cards, debit cards, and new types of payment systems—such as stored-value cards and prepaid cards—are governed by different rules and provide consumers with varying protections. In addition, several phenomena may have confused consumers about the type of consumer protections they have when using different payment systems. First, new types of intermediaries have developed—such as online funds transmission and electronic bill presentment and payment—that piggyback on existing payment systems. Second, electronic check conversion systems may convert customer checks into a different payment system—electronic funds …

Do You Want To Bet Your Children's Health On Post-Market Harm Principles - An Argument For A Trespass Or Permission Model For Regulating Toxicants, Carl F. Cranor

Villanova Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Globalization Of Health And Safety Standards: Delegation Of Regulatory Authority In The Sps Agreement Of The 1994 Agreement Establishing The World Trade Organization, Tim Buthe

Law and Contemporary Problems

Buthe examines why states delegated regulatory authority in the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures, an integral part of the founding treaty of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Buthe argues that, to explain this case of international delegation, principal-agent theory must be complemented by an analysis of cost-benefit calculations of the relevant domestic interest groups. Given these domestic interests, governments decided to institutionalize international cooperation on SPS measures outside of the WTO because they believed that such delegation would minimize the political costs of the loss of policymaking autonomy. Buthe notes, however, that in retrospect it …

Opening The Door: Crowe V. Tull And The Application Of The Colorado Consumer Protection Act To Attorneys, Daniela Ronchetti

University of Colorado Law Review

In Crowe v. Tull, the Colorado Supreme Court held that the Colorado Consumer Protection Act ("CCPA") applies to attorneys. Putting consumers of legal services on par with consumers in other industries, the decision opened a new avenue of recovery in attorney-client disputes. This Note explores the ramifications of Crowe for attorneys and their clients. Specifically, the Note analyzes the elements of a CCPA claim and their interpretation by the courts and argues that in most cases, a client will not be able to successfully pursue a CCPA claim against his or her attorney. Particularly, a client will have difficulty proving …

Market Failure In The Marketplace Of Ideas, Tamara R. Piety

Tamara R. Piety

Proponents of expansive First Amendment protection for commercial speech often invoke "the marketplace of ideas" metaphor. The use of this metaphor simultaneously invokes generalized notions about the commitment to free markets and free expression. It implies these values are intertwined and that more protection for commercial speech means both more freedom and more truth. I argue that expanding First Amendment protection for commercial speech will not result in the either more truth or more freedom but rather to less of each and explore the ways in which, even with only limited protection for truthful commercial speech, the market has actually …