Consumer Protection Law Commons^™

A Noncompete By Any Other Name: Assessing The Validity Of Training Repayment Agreements Under Washington Law, Hannah Lukomski

Washington Law Review

Training Repayment Agreements (TRAs) are restrictive employment covenants that require an employee to pay their employer a fixed or prorated sum for training costs if the employee quits their job within some period defined by the agreement. The prevalence of TRAs has drastically increased in low-wage employment. TRAs harm employees by imposing an artificial financial constraint that disincentivizes employees from leaving their employer within the contract duration. The Washington State Legislature has not directly addressed TRAs despite having articulated limits on other restrictive employment covenants, like noncompetition agreements. This Comment reviews federal agency actions and other states’ approaches in response …

After Notice And Choice: Reinvigorating “Unfairness” To Rein In Data Abuses, Lina M. Khan, Samuel A.A. Levine, Stephanie T. Nguyen

Faculty Scholarship

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has long served as America’s default privacy enforcer. Yet for much of its history, the agency relied on self-regulation through a “notice and choice” framework that left the public vulnerable in an era of rampant data collection and digital surveillance. Businesses overwhelmed users with dense privacy notices while amassing and exploiting vast troves of personal data. The agency’s historical approach, rooted in outdated assumptions about self-correcting markets and an ideologically cramped view of the FTC’s authorities and mandate, helped usher in a digital economy where data abuses became routine.

During the Biden Administration, the FTC …

Defragging Ownership: How Corporations Sliced, Diced, And Sold The Bundle, Joao Marinotti

Indiana Law Journal

Personal property ownership is in a precarious state, facing structural, economic, and legal assaults. As a result, the autonomy, security, and privacy that ownership once protected have been displaced by a tenuous reliance on opaque contractual arrangements and corporate goodwill. Owners no longer enjoy the unfettered right to access, use, and control their personal property. Through a range of seemingly unrelated business practices, companies have leveraged their growing power to disaggregate the property bundle into compartmentalized rights and privileges, which can then be individually licensed, leased, restricted, or even revoked. Purchases no longer mark the end of buyer-seller relationships; instead, …

Cruising Beyond Car Dealer Dominance, Piotr Tereszkiewicz

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The automotive industry plays a pivotal role in both the American economy and American daily life. This means that the laws that govern the automotive industry and structure power dynamics between central players in the market also play a pivotal role in both the American economy and American daily life. One such area of law has room for improvement: laws governing the manufacturer-dealer relationship in car sales.

Although the law currently structures automotive industry power dynamics to the detriment of consumer welfare, it does not have to be this way. This Article proposes legal reforms aimed at improving consumer welfare …

The Financial Sector And Global Dollar System, Gary Gensler, Lev Menand, Joshua Younger

Faculty Scholarship

The second Trump administration’s approach to financial markets and institutions mixes familiar deregulatory policies with a range of other policies (financial and non-financial) that are largely without precedent and may lead to significant structural change in the long term. Combined, these policies have the potential to affect the financial sector in at least four ways. First, they could threaten the foundations of the global dollar system – mutual cooperation, trust, and interdependency, both between the producers and consumers of financial instruments and among the nations that constitute the dollar bloc. Second, they may undermine financial stability by loosening prudential standards, …

The Ethics Of Exploitation: How Social Media Profits From Attention, Addiction, And Data Manipulation, Laeila Scott

NSU Undergraduate Law Journal

The pervasive influence of social media platforms extends far beyond digital interaction, shaping human behavior, manipulating democratic processes, and exploiting user data with minimal oversight. Through the attention economy, these platforms employ algorithms designed to maximize engagement at the expense of users’ autonomy, fostering addiction and cognitive dependency. Manipulative terms and conditions further entrench corporate control, binding users to contracts with the very companies that obscure the extent of data collection and limit legal recourse. The Cambridge Analytica scandal laid bare the dangers of unregulated data harvesting, demonstrating how personal information can be weaponized for political and economic gain.

Beyond …

Have You Been Duped? Counterfeiting And Contributory Trademark Infringement In The World Of E-Commerce, Social Media, And Influencers, Emma Goolsby

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This paper will address how social media platforms and individual influencers can be held liable for contributory trademark infringement by analyzing relevant case law, empirical data, and social media trends such as dupe culture. Part II provides an overview of trademark law, including a discussion of the consumer, the Lanham Act, counterfeiting, and different types of infringement. Part III analyzes relevant case law and the weak standard courts use to asses contributory liability claims. Part IV discusses counterfeits and dupe culture, focusing specifically on TikTok and DHgate. Part V discusses influencers and the role they play in disseminating and popularizing …

Cybersquatting: Does Re-Registering Trademarks Fall Under The Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act?, Taylor Heath

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This paper will explain the arguments whether the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) prevents cybersquatting from re-registering a domain name, or if the ACPA only prevents cybersquatters from being the first to register a domain name, and concludes that due to the clear intent of the Act and the definition of register, the Act should be interpreted to cover all registrations. Part II provides relevant background including the pre-ACPA laws. Part III provides a detailed explanation of the ACPA, including Congress’s intent, the Court’s breakdown, and the existing law. Part IV provides the relevant case history prior to the circuit …

Blueprints For The Gilded Age Of Borrowing: Theorizing Mutually Beneficial Policies For The Golden Age Of Private Credit, Sam Friedman

Brooklyn Law Review

Through financial ingenuity, lending practices often generate an indirect yet significant impact on the average person’s finances. Relatedly, the 2007–2008 Financial Crisis revealed the profound and far-reaching consequences attributable to risky lending. Congress sought to curb lenders’ risk appetite by passing the Dodd-Frank Act, legislation which commissioned new, industry-specific oversight bodies. However, this legislative antidote had a side effect: it engendered a new class of borrowers—those precluded, based on a variety of risk diagnostics, from obtaining capital from the most popular lenders. But when the conventional borrowing doors closed, private lending markets opened in earnest. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, growth …

Reaching Communities And Serving People: Assessing Utah's Legal Needs, Pamela Beatse J.D, Scotti Hill J.D, Keenan Carroll J.D., Hannah Kiely M.A

Utah Conference on Community Engagement

"Utah Legal Services (ULS) conducted a comprehensive legal needs assessment in 2024 to gather the necessary data and information to better meet its mission of providing high-quality civil legal aid without cost to people who are unable to afford legal representation or are facing disadvantages. Using the combination of an online survey, a series of focus groups throughout the Wasatch front, individual or group interviews, and several community soundboards, ULS conducted a broad, statewide survey. We connected with representatives, organizations, advocates, case managers, and leaders in the community as well as with client-eligible Utahns and ULS staff. This process allowed …

The Fair Credit Reporting Act, David J. Fletcher

Maine Law Review

With the increasing importance of credit in the United States economy, a specialized group of agencies has developed to supply businesses with personal information on consumers. These reporting agencies come in two basic forms. Credit bureaus deal with purely economic data and use a file system to develop their reports. Investigative consumer reporting agencies issue a more comprehensive report which is generally the result of a field investigation. Because of subjective judgments, errors of identification, or use of untrustworthy sources, consumer reports often are inaccurate. The direct result of most inaccuracy is harm to the report's subject, the consumer. An …

Advantages And Disadvantages—A Comparison Of The Present Maine Law And The U3c, John A. Spanogle Jr.

Maine Law Review

The Uniform Consumer Credit Code [U3C] is a statute which will be proposed to the Maine Legislature for enactment in the near future. Like its sister code, the Uniform Commercial Code [UCC], the U3C was drafted and is being supported by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. Their hope is that the widespread acceptance of the UCC will lead to similar acceptance of the U3C. An understanding of the U3C requires an understanding of its drafting history and the motivations of the various pressure groups responsible for its drafting. The drafting history begins with the UCC, which …

Digital Platform Safety And The Problem Of Variable Costs, Margaret O'Grady, Fiona Scott Morton

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Because the United States has no digital regulator to set minimum quality or safety standards for digital products, dominant platforms have both the ability and permission to harm consumers, a trend which will accelerate. Digital platforms with market power have no incentive to shoulder the expense of providing safe, high-quality services, because the marginal costs of providing increased quality and safety—often human beings engaged in content moderation or fact-checking—are so high. If providing better quality would increase profits, digital platforms would have done so already. Instead, digital platforms act like automobile manufacturers before regulators required seatbelts: they will insist that …

The Fair Credit Reporting Act, David J. Fletcher

Maine Law Review

With the increasing importance of credit in the United States economy, a specialized group of agencies has developed to supply businesses with personal information on consumers. These reporting agencies come in two basic forms. Credit bureaus deal with purely economic data and use a file system to develop their reports. Investigative consumer reporting agencies issue a more comprehensive report which is generally the result of a field investigation. Because of subjective judgments, errors of identification, or use of untrustworthy sources, consumer reports often are inaccurate. The direct result of most inaccuracy is harm to the report's subject, the consumer. An …

Applying Federal Antitrust Law To Banking Services—Noninterest-Bearing Mortgage Escrow Accounts, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

It is reasonable that lenders should require mortgage escrow accounts on high loan-to-value mortgages, for lenders are extending a significant amount of credit. Since a house is often the single most valuable purchase ever made by a family, that house is often the only asset of sufficient value to secure the loan. Therefore, the lender will want assurances that the value of the house will be maintained. Mortgage escrow accounts help provide that assurance by protecting against tax liens and accidental damage. But noninterest-bearing mortgage escrow accounts have recently come under fire from consumer advocates. The complaint is that the …

Applying Federal Antitrust Law To Banking Services—Noninterest-Bearing Mortgage Escrow Accounts, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

It is reasonable that lenders should require mortgage escrow accounts on high loan-to-value mortgages, for lenders are extending a significant amount of credit. Since a house is often the single most valuable purchase ever made by a family, that house is often the only asset of sufficient value to secure the loan. Therefore, the lender will want assurances that the value of the house will be maintained. Mortgage escrow accounts help provide that assurance by protecting against tax liens and accidental damage. But noninterest-bearing mortgage escrow accounts have recently come under fire from consumer advocates. The complaint is that the …

No Lawyer, No Jail: A Critical Case Study Of Pragmatism And The Flaws Of “Purposeful” Decision Making In Argersinger V. Hamlin, Alisa Smith, Sarah K. Stice

Seattle University Law Review

By releasing conference notes and internal communications, Supreme Court Justices provide insight into the otherwise private decisionmaking process, shedding light on how case outcomes and legal reasoning are framed and negotiated. The watershed case of Argersinger v. Hamlin (1972) extended the constitutional right to counsel to some, but not all, misdemeanor defendants. The case was argued twice, and the Court relied on empirical and authoritative sources to answer complex and practical questions about requiring counsel. This case study employs critical discourse analysis to uncover what influenced the Justices’ decisions and how they framed, shaped, and constructed social realities to foreground …

The Race To Erase: Destruction Of Government Documents Undermines Freedom-Of-Information Laws, Frank D. Lomonte

Seattle University Law Review

In August 2019, reporters with Chattanooga’s daily newspaper, the Times Free Press, filed what seemed to be a routine request for access to emails and other public records held by their local county government. The seemingly unremarkable request set the newspaper’s staff on a months-long journey of unpleasant surprises. The first was a demand to pay the county $717 in advance before being allowed to inspect the documents. The second was that—during prolonged haggling over the fee assessment— the county attorney’s office simply destroyed almost all of the disputed records. Third, and most glaringly, the journalists discovered that Tennessee law …

When You’Re Arrested For A Felony In Seattle, You’Ll Meet Me., Austin Field

Seattle University Law Review

In this Essay, Austin Field, a practicing public defender, uses a first-person perspective to describe what it is like to meet a criminal defendant for the first time. He explains the process from start to finish, detailing everything from the way he introduces himself to how bail works.

"I’ll ask you for your name. Most of the time, you tell me. I check your name against my list. On any given day I’m supposed to interview between five and fifteen people. I have a lot of questions for you. We only have about ten minutes."

The Public Square In A Private-Property Obsessed Country: What New York City’S Pops Regulations Get Right And Why Other Cities Should (Mostly) Copy Them, Carson Mcgregor

Seattle University Law Review

When New York City (NYC) was first becoming the metropolitan monolith it is today, it had a problem: the city streets were chock full of skyscrapers, and sunlight, air, and usable open space were at a premium. In response, the City promulgated its first Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS) regulations, which allowed developers to build skyward in exchange for providing public space on the street level. Unfortunately, in July of 2023, the New York Times (NYT) discovered that New Yorkers received only a fraction of what they were promised. Building owners received billions of dollars’ worth of added floor space, …