Consumer Protection Law Commons^™

The Content Of Consumer Law Classes Iii, Jeff Sovern

Faculty Publications

This paper reports on a 2018 survey of law professors teaching consumer protection, and follows up on similar 2010 and 2008 surveys, which appeared in Jeff Sovern, The Content of Consumer Law Classes II, 14 J. Consumer & Commercial L. 16 (No. 1 2010), at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1657624 and Jeff Sovern, The Content of Consumer Law Classes, 12 J. Consumer & Commercial L. 48 (No. 1 2008), at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1139894, respectively. As reported in previous surveys, professors teaching consumer law report considerable variation in coverage. Professors want to cover relatively current subjects within their courses, such as FinTech, credit invisibles, and mortgage …

The Equifax Data Breach And The Resulting Legal Recourse, Caitlin Kenny

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

What happens when one’s sensitive information falls into the wrong hands? With the twenty-first century’s advancement of technology comes the increasing problem of data breaches wherein sensitive information is exposed. On September 7, 2017, Equifax, one of three major United States credit reporting agencies announced one of the largest data breaches in the history of the United States. The data breach affected approximately 145 million consumers and subsequently a wave of consumer class actions followed. This Note clarifies why class action lawsuits and arbitration are not viable legal remedies for massive data breaches where entities like credit reporting agencies are …

The Devious Debtor: 11 U.S.C. § 523(A)(2)(B) And The Need For A More Equitable Outcome, Torie Levine

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Section 523(a)(2)(A) of the Bankruptcy Code prohibits debtors from discharging debts for money, property, services, or credit obtained by false pretenses, a false representation, or actual fraud other than a statement respecting the debtor’s financial condition. Under § 523(a)(2)(B), if those debts are obtained by a statement respecting the debtor’s financial condition, then the statement must be in writing for the debt to be discharged. A conflict among the circuit courts arose as to whether a statement about a single asset can be a statement respecting the debtor’s financial condition. The majority of the courts applied a narrow interpretation to …

In Consumer Protection We Trust? Re-Thinking The Legal Framework For Country Of Origin Cases, Shmuel I. Becher, Jessica C. Lai

San Diego Law Review

Markets are becoming more complicated in an ever faster changing world. New findings pertaining to human behavior and consumer markets constantly challenge traditional legal and policy assumptions. Social science offers a myriad of insights into the ways trust, identity, ideology, and preferences interact and impact one another. Against this background, the need to advance a nuanced legal framework is increasingly vital.

Consumer law policy requires an interdisciplinary and holistic approach. Recent scholarship has acknowledged this need, proposing novel ways to enrich the academic discourse and develop consumer law policy. Along these lines, a growing body of literature examines how notions …

Moving Beyond The Wto: A Proposal To Adjudicate Gmo Disputes In An International Environmental Court, Marguerite A. Hutchinson

San Diego International Law Journal

This Article begins with a brief summary of the scientific basis of creating GMOs and its historic precursors. The second section provides an overview of risks to humans and the environment. The third part of this Article analyzes the arguments put forward by both the United States and the E.U., which have defined the conflict between blocs of countries pushing GMOs abroad and those who persistently reject them. The fourth section evaluates the respective regulatory schemes imposed on GMOs by the United States and Europe, domestically and by international treaty. The success of these systems is evaluated in the fifth …

Shadowing Lenders And Consumers: The Rise, Regulation, And Risks Of Non-Banks, Shelby D. Green

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Since the financial crisis of 2008, “shadow banking” or financial transactions by “non-banks,” has skyrocketed. Non-banks are not depositary institutions and as such, they roam free, largely outside the purview of the bank regulators. They occupy all parts of the credit markets, from mortgage loan origination to payday lenders. Untethered, they operate without government guarantees, such as deposit insurance and have no access to emergency government lending facilities, such as the Federal Reserve's discount window.

There are both positives and negatives in the rise of non-banks. On the positive side is market liquidity and greater diversity of funding sources for …

The End Of Bargaining In The Digital Age, Saul Levmore, Frank Fagan

Cornell Law Review

Bargaining is a fundamental characteristic of many markets and legal disputes, but it can be a source of inefficiency. Buyers often waste resources by searching for information about past prices, where a seller already holds that information. A second—and novel—source of social loss is that some buyers will avoid otherwise beneficial bargains and sellers with negotiable prices because they recognize the seller’s advantage in any haggling match. They might also hide information that reveals their willingness to pay. This Article argues for mandated disclosure of past prices, and occasionally settlements, where these have been negotiable. The rule requires uniform or …

Update On Antitrust And Pay-For-Delay: Evaluating “No Authorized Generic” And “Exclusive License” Provisions In Hatch-Waxman Settlements, Saami Zain

San Diego Law Review

In Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, the United States Supreme Court held that a patent litigation settlement where a branded drug company pays a generic drug company to end the litigation and delay launching its generic may violate the antitrust laws. Although the decision ended years of controversy over whether such settlements were subject to antitrust scrutiny, many issues remain unresolved concerning the lawfulness of these settlements. In particular, courts have struggled in assessing the legality of patent settlements between branded and generic drug manufacturers involving non-cash compensation or benefits. This article discusses one type of non-cash compensation that is …

Looking For Venue In The Patently Right Places: A Parallel Study Of The Venue Act And Venue In Anda Litigation, Mengke Xing

San Diego Law Review

Like any other type of litigation, venue is often an important strategic decision for patent infringement litigants. Under the traditional nation-wide venue rule, a patent owner was able to sue a corporate defendant almost in every district in the country, giving rise to abusive forum shopping and the popularity of the Eastern District of Texas. Last year, the Supreme Court in TC Heartland dramatically changed the legal framework of venue in patent litigation, while leaving some issues unaddressed. After a discussion of the evolvement of venue laws and the significance of TC Heartland, this Comment focuses on the Venue Equity …

Health Care Referrals Out Of The Shadows: Recognizing The Looming Threat Of The Texas Patient Solicitation Act And Other Illegal Remuneration Statutes, Trenton Brown

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

Trademark's Judicial De-Evolution: Why Courts Get Trademark Cases Wrong Repeatedly, Glynn Lunney

Faculty Scholarship

Trademark law has de-evolved. It has transitioned from an efficient mechanism for ensuring competition into an inefficient regime for capturing economic rents. In this Article, I focus on the role that party self-interest has played in biasing the evolution of trademark law. This self-interest tends to lead parties to (1) challenge efficient legal rules and seek to replace them with inefficient, anticompetitive rules, and (2) accede to inefficient, anticompetitive rules once they are in place. Almost by definition, when a rule of trademark law promotes competition, it reduces the market surplus or rents that current producers capture. As a result, …

Holding Ridesharing Companies Accountable In Texas, Martha Alejandra Salas

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

Workplace Privacy In The Age Of Social Media, Tess Traylor-Notaro

Global Business Law Review

This note addresses the lack of adequate protections in Ohio for social media privacy laws in the workplace and compares proposed legislation in Ohio to legislation that has passed in other states. It examines the provision of the SCA including the definition of "user" and whether social media sites fall under its umbrella. It also looks at the safeguards and limitations of the SCA and how it is used to protect a private employee’s social media account. It analyzes the state statutory laws in Arkansas, Illinois, and California passed specifically to prevent employers from requesting passwords to personal Internet accounts. …

Consumer Law Immersion, Kevin M. Mcdonald, Karl Hochkammer, Steven Wernikoff

Global Business Law Review

As part of Washington University School of Law’s (WashULaw) Online Master of Legal Studies (MLS) program, students attend optional weekend immersion courses at the law school in St. Louis in both the spring and fall. We recently taught a course on consumer law over the spring 2018 weekend session held on March 23-25, 2018. In attendance were twenty-two students, most of whom were enrolled in the MLS program. Several were foreign lawyers and one was an LL.M. student. This article summarizes our three-day experience and concludes with our key learnings that incorporate feedback we received from students both during and …

Broken Promises: How Debt-Financed Higher Education Rewrote America’S Social Contract And Fueled A Quiet Crisis, Seth Frotman

Utah Law Review

The U.S. student loan market stands at $1.5 trillion—the second largest consumer debt market in the country. Despite the vast size of this market and the far-reaching spillover effects of student loan debt on individuals and communities, the American higher education system increasingly relies on debt financing as the predominant mechanism by which American families pay for college. Furthermore, student loans still lack a comprehensive twenty-first century consumer protection infrastructure. Researchers and policymakers are only now beginning to acknowledge the threat runaway student debt poses to the American social contract - even as millions of borrowers across the country struggle …

The Case For More Debt: Expanding College Affordability By Expanding Income-Driven Repayment, John R. Brooks

Utah Law Review

One of the most important—but least discussed—legislative and regulatory accomplishments of the Obama administration was the reform and expansion of income-driven repayment (“IDR”) for federal student loans. By 2016, anyone with a federal student loan—old or new—could choose to cap their monthly student loan payments to 10 percent of their discretionary income (after a large exemption) and have any unpaid balances forgiven after a minimum of ten, twenty, or twenty-five years of repayment, depending on the plan. IDR has the potential to effect a massive change in how the United States pays for higher education. At its core, the promise …

The Economics Of American Higher Education In The New Gilded Age, Paul Campos

Utah Law Review

Student debt is a function of three factors: the cost of higher education, the extent to which that cost is subsidized through sources other than students and their families, and the percentage of nonsubsidized revenue that is supplied via loans rather than out-of-pocket payments.

The first factor is a product of how much money colleges and universities choose to spend. The second is determined by total value of the many sources of subsidization upon which higher education draws. The third is a function of the relative wealth or poverty of the people who make up the student bodies at American …

The Narrative And Rhetoric Of Student Debt, Jonathan D. Glater

Utah Law Review

The swirl of concerns about and criticisms of the cost of higher education and the debt burdens taken on by students masks a deeper confusion over the goals student aid should pursue and over reforms to enable achievement of those goals. This Article explores how the rhetoric used in public discussion of college cost and student borrowing can get in the way of what would be a difficult but critically important debate over goals. Higher education is a personal, private “investment” that must be “worth it” to the student; student “aid,” flexible loan repayment plans, even debt forgiveness, all aim …

Improvident Student Lending, Joseph Sanders, Vijay Raghavan

Utah Law Review

The idea that lending without regard to ability to repay should be illegal is not particularly new, but it gained purchase in recent years with the rapid growth of high-cost mortgage loans. In the late 1990s, law enforcement and private litigants began attacking predatory mortgage lenders on the grounds they were making loans that borrowers could not afford. Both before and after the financial crisis of 2008, state and federal legislators imposed reforms on the mortgage market that provided relief to borrowers whose lenders failed to determine whether they had sufficient income to afford their monthly mortgage payments.

This Article …

Forum Selection Clauses And Consumer Contracts In Canada, Tanya J. Monestier

Journal Articles

Every day, billions of people use the online social media platform, Facebook. Facebook requires, as a condition of use, that users “accept” its terms and conditions—which include a forum selection clause nominating California as the exclusive forum for dispute resolution. In Douez v. Facebook, the Supreme Court of Canada considered whether this forum selection clause was enforceable, or whether the plaintiff could proceed with her suit in British Columbia.

The Supreme Court of Canada ultimately decided that the forum selection clause was not enforceable. It held that the plaintiff had established “strong cause” for departing from the forum selection clause. …

Federal Student Aid: Can We Solve A Problem We Do Not Understand?, Deanne Loonin, Julie Margetta Morgan

Utah Law Review

At over $1 trillion, with more than 8 million borrowers in default, the federal student loan program is in trouble. There is no question that policymakers will do their best to fix it in the coming years. The only question is whether they will have the evidence they need to make informed judgments about what ails our student loan program, and what can cure it.

In the coming years, advocates, policymakers, and researchers should focus on gathering data and information on all possible causes of the failures in the student loan program. As the previous Part describes, the public has …

Forum Selection Clauses And Consumer Contracts In Canada, Tanya Monestier

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Technology Regulation By Default: Platforms, Privacy, And The Cfpb, Rory Van Loo

Faculty Scholarship

In the absence of a technology-focused regulator, diverse administrative agencies have been forced to develop regulatory models for governing their sphere of the data economy. These largely uncoordinated efforts offer a laboratory of regulatory experimentation on governance architecture. This symposium essay explores what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has done in its first several years to regulate financial technology (“fintech”), in the context of broader technology-related concerns identified in the literature. It begins with a survey of what the CFPB has undertaken using more traditional administrative agency tools—enforcement and rulemaking—in areas such as privacy, consumer control over data, and …

One Man’S Tale Of Resisting The Seducing Spa Sirens Of Singapore, Gary Low

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Why do people give in to pressure selling in the slimming and beauty industry? One consumer lawprofessor explores the dazzling experience of stepping into a spa.

Kajian Peraturan Perlindungan Konsumen Di Sektor Perbankan, Aad Rusyad Nurdin

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

The dynamics of carrying out intensive banking business activities between customers and banks have the potential to raise various problems that cause violations of the rights of customers as consumers of a bank's business activities. To overcome the problems of customers as banking consumers, it is necessary to examine the regulations in the banking sector regarding consumer protection regulations in the banking sector with Law No. 8 of 1999 concerning Consumer Protection (UUPK). This research is a normative research that study the law of consumer protection as contained in the UUPK. The results of the study show that the legislation …

The Gm Food Debate: An Evaluation Of The National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard And Recommendations For The United States Based On Food Justice, Courtnee Grego

Seattle University Law Review

This Note aims to identify the food justice issues caused by the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard (NBFDS) and make recommendations for the United States to minimize these concerns. The NBFDS requires the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to draft regulations establishing a mandatory disclosure standard for GM food and ultimately, will require a disclosure on the package of any GM food sold in the United States. Part I of the Note provides an overview of the genetically modified (GM) food debate. Part II reviews the NBFDS. Part III explains the food justice implications of GM food production. Part …

The Gm Food Debate: An Evaluation Of The Nationalbioengineered Food Disclosure Standard Andrecommendations For The United States Based On Foodjustice, Courtnee Grego

Seattle University Law Review

This Note aims to identify the food justice issues caused by the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard (NBFDS) and make recommendations for the United States to minimize these concerns. The NBFDS requires the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to draft regulations establishing a mandatory disclosure standard for GM food and ultimately, will require a disclosure on the package of any GM food sold in the United States. Part I of the Note provides an overview of the genetically modified (GM) food debate. Part II reviews the NBFDS. Part III explains the food justice implications of GM food production. Part …

The Race Is On! Regulating Self-Driving Vehicles Before They Hit The Streets, Jack Liechtung

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

As the world braces itself for the unveiling of autonomous vehicles, the idea of regulation and oversight has gone largely undetected. Though some states have already begun enacting legislation ahead of the technology’s wide release, the regulatory landscape across the country is in disarray. It is imperative that both manufacturers and consumers be given some sort of uniform understanding as to how the automation is overseen throughout the manufacturing process and how liability will be levied in the case of inevitable mistakes on our nation’s roadways. This Note proposes that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration be responsible for providing …

When Good Policies Go Bad: Controlling Risks Posed By Flawed Incentive-Based Compensation, Nicole Vincent

Cleveland State Law Review

The recent Wells Fargo scandal revealed the harm that can result from flawed incentive-based compensation arrangements. Large financial institutions have both a legal and an ethical obligation to ensure that any incentive-based compensation arrangements that are in place will not encourage risky or fraudulent employee behavior. The continued existence of inappropriate and poorly structured arrangements demonstrates that existing regulations are inadequate to ensure compliance and protect consumers. Regulations should include increased penalties and should more evenly distribute the burden of oversight and compliance between the public and private sectors. In addition to regulatory reform, the government should prosecute culpable high-level …

Uncharted Waters? Legal Ethics And The Benefit Corporation, Joseph Pileri

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Corporate law norms are reflected in lawyers’ ethical duties. The enactment of benefit corporation legislation across the country signals a legislative acknowledgment that corporate law can serve as a public, rather than a merely private, ordering mechanism. Benefit corporations expressly adopt a public benefit as a legal purpose of the enterprise. While many have written about this important development with respect to corporate fiduciary law, this essay is the first to explore the professional and ethical responsibility of lawyers representing benefit corporations. In the last century, as scholars and courts drove an understanding of corporate law that elevated the interests …