Consumer Protection Law Commons^™

Cars In Chapter 13: Does Negative Equity Destroy The Jurisdiction Of The Hanging Paragraph, David G. Carlson

Articles

Roughly speaking, the “hanging paragraph” to Bankruptcy Code 1325(a), enacted in 2005, requires that a debtor pay the full debt on any automobile acquired within 910 days before bankruptcy – a boon for car financiers. Prior to 2005 the debtor had to pay only the appraised value of the car – usually a lesser amount. But the privilege bestowed on car financiers by the hanging paragraph depends on the financier providing “purchase money” credit. About one-third of the time, however, the financier advances funds to repay a prior car loan as part of the “trade-in” of an old vehicle for …

Graduated Response By Industry Compact: Piercing The Black Box, Mary Lafrance

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Internet Advertising After Sorrell V. Ims Health: A Discussion On Data Privacy & The First Amendment, Agatha M. Cole

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

An Investigation Of The Rationality Of Consumer Valuations Of Multiple Health Risks, W. Kip Viscusi, Wesley A. Magat, Joel Huber

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

After developing a conceptual analysis of consumer valuation of multiple risks, we explore both economic and cognitive hypotheses regarding individual risk-taking. Using a sample of over 1,500 consumers, our study ascertains risk-dollar tradeoffs for the risks associated with using an insecticide and a toilet bowl cleaner. We observe the expected positive valuation of risk reductions andfind empirical supportfor a diminishing in the valuation of risk reduction as the extent of the risk reduction increases. We also find evidence of certainty premiums for the total elimination of one risk, but no strong evidence of additional certainty premiums for the elimination of …

Regulation Goes Medieval, Andrew A. Schwartz

Publications

Section 301 of the 2009 federal Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act prohibits the issuance of consumer credit cards to young adults ages 18–20 unless the credit contract is cosigned by an older adult who accepts joint liability for the card, or else the young adult proves she has “independent means of repaying” her credit card obligations. This prohibition is at odds with a 50-year trend of extending the rights of adulthood to people ages 18–20. It also blocks an important source of credit for young entrepreneurs, who often use consumer credit to launch their enterprises.

The Homeowners’ Illusory Safety Net: Mortgage Broker Surety Liability, Bryan Adamson

Faculty Articles

This Article exposes a critical consumer protection flaw in Washington State’s Mortgage Brokers Practices Act. While allowing aggrieved borrowers to bring claims against mortgage brokers at least up to three years from the date of injury, it requires a borrower to bring an action against the mortgage broker’s surety within one year of the injury. This Article posits that the one-year statute of limitations for actions against the mortgage surety is procedurally counterintuitive. Importantly, it also compels filing of possibly frivolous claims, and subverts all other statute of limitations provisions otherwise available to a wronged consumer. The Article explains why …

Does The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Of 1974, Which Was Targeted Primarily At Kickbacks Between Service Providers, Also Bar Charges For Undivided, Unearned Services (10-1042), Marshall E. Tracht

Other Publications

The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974 provides that “[n]o person shall give and no person shall accept any portion, split, or percentage of any charge made or received … other than for services actually performed.” The Supreme Court must decide whether this language prohibits a party from charging for services not actually performed if the party retains the entire charge, without splitting it with any other party.

Back To The Future: Applying The Collateral Bars Of Section 925 Of The Dodd-Frank Act To Previous Bad Acts, Chad Howell

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Credit Risk Transfer Governance: The Good, The Bad, And The Savvy, Houman B. Shadab

Articles & Chapters

Goldman Sachs and American International Group on the eve of the 2008 financial crisis were bound together through a web of credit risk transfer (CRT) contracts in the form of credit default swaps (CDSs) and synthetic collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Synthetic CDOs enabled certain hedge funds to profit from the ultimate bursting of the housing bubble due to the funds’ savvy in understanding CRT better than their counterparties. This Article constructs a novel theory of CRT that extends the insights of creditor governance theory to CRT transactions. By doing so, this Article establishes a framework for good CRT governance. CRT …

Meaning, Purpose, And Cause In The Law Of Deception, Gregory Klass

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Laws designed to affect the flow of information take many forms: rules against misrepresentation, disclosure requirements, secrecy requirements, rules governing the formatting or packaging of information, and interpretive rules designed to give people new reasons to share information. Together these and similar rules constitute the law of deception: laws that aim to prevent or cure deception. One encounters similar problems of design, function and justification throughout the law of deception. Yet very little has been written about the category as a whole. This article begins to sketch a general theory. It identifies three regulatory approaches. Interpretive laws, such as common …

Freedom Of Contract In An Augmented Reality: The Case Of Consumer Contracts, Scott R. Peppet

Publications

This Article argues that freedom of contract will take on different meaning in a world in which new technology makes information about places, goods, people, firms, and contract terms available to contracting parties anywhere, at any time. In particular, our increasingly "augmented reality" calls into question leading justifications for distrusting consumer contracts and strengthens traditional understandings of freedom of contract. This is largely a descriptive and predictive argument: This Article aims to introduce contract law to these technologies and consider their most likely effects. It certainly has normative implications, however. Given that the vast majority of consumer contracting occurs in …

Privacy & The Personal Prospectus: Should We Introduce Privacy Agents Or Regulate Privacy Intermediaries, Scott R. Peppet

Publications

No abstract provided.

Direct-To-Consumer Genetic Testing: Learning From The Past And Looking Toward The Future, Stephanie Bair

Faculty Scholarship

A decade after the complete sequencing of the human genome, we have seen a proliferation of genetic testing services marketed directly to the consumer and purporting to use genetic information to generate individualized health information. These tests have been subject to only minimal regulation, despite the fact that scientists and policymakers have serious concerns about both the clinical effectiveness of the tests and the safety of releasing certain types of health information to the public without the supervision of a health care professional. Proponents of minimal regulation argue that the tests allow for patient autonomy and privacy of genetic information, …

Trademark Dilution And Corporate Personhood, Stacey Dogan

Shorter Faculty Works

It’s become almost passé to decry our federal trademark dilution laws. The laws – first passed in 1995 and amended in 2006 – protect “famous trademarks” against uses that are likely to dilute their distinctiveness, without regard to any confusion among consumers or competition between the parties. Early critics warned that passage of the anti-dilution statute marked a turning point in trademark law: by giving famous trademark holders rights against even non-confusing uses of their marks, the law created “property”-like rights in trademarks. The initial commentary on the statute focused mainly on the costs associated with this increasingly absolutist approach …

Memorandum Of Amici Curiae In Support Of Petition For Writ Of Certiorari, Pasadena Receivables, Inc. V. Loren W. Parker,, Peter A. Holland

Court Briefs

The petition for certiorari to the Maryland Court of Appeals by Loren Parker concerned the interpretation of Maryland Rule of Evidence 5-902, specifically the authentication of business records by debt buyers.

The central issue was whether a debt purchaser is bound by the same rules of evidence for the admissibility of business records as other Maryland businesses. Rule 5-902(b) provides for the self-authentication of records of a regularly conducted business activity. It requires that a party served with a 5-902(b) notice must object within 5 days. The petitioner debtor argued that this rule was being abused by debt buyers, like …

Are You Ready For Some Football?: How Antitrust Laws Can Be Used To Break Up Directv's Exclusive Right To Telecast Nfl's Sunday Ticket Package, Ariel Y. Bublick

Federal Communications Law Journal

There is almost no question that football has become modem America's pastime. Football has never been more popular, and every Sunday people are clamoring to watch as many games as possible. The Sunday Ticket package allows viewers to watch any National Football League ("NFL") game being played at any given time. However, the NFL has only granted DirecTV the right to air the Sunday Ticket package, denying this excellent service to a majority of television viewers. By limiting the reach of the Sunday Ticket package, the NFL may be in violation of antitrust laws. This Note begins by explaining antitrust …

Fair Is Fair—Reshaping Alaska’S Unfair Trade Practices And Consumer Protection Act, Ryan P. O'Quinn, Thomas Watterson

Alaska Law Review

Few fields of law impact as wide a swath of population as consumer protection law. Alaska adopted its consumer protection statute, the Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Act (UTPCPA), amid a national movement to strengthen consumer protection laws. The UTPCPA uses broad language to encompass a wide range of conduct. However, creative pleading and recent applications of the UTPCPA have expanded the law in ways that threaten Alaska businesses even in the absence of culpable conduct. This Note reviews the history of consumer protection, Alaska’s UTPCPA, and the incentives leading to an expanding application of the UTPCPA. The Note …

Transnational Class Actions And The Illusory Search For Res Judicata, Tanya Monestier

Law Faculty Scholarship

The transnational class action-a class action in which a portion of the class consists of non-US claimants-is here to stay Defendants typically resist the certification of transnational class actions on the basis that such actions provide no assurance of finality for a defendant, as it will always be possible for a non-U.S. class member to initiate subsequent proceedings in a foreign court. In response to this concern, many U.S. courts will analyze whether the "home" courts of the foreign class members would accord res judicata effect to an eventual U.S. judgment prior to certifying a U.S. class action containing foreign …

Proving Racial Discrimination And Monitoring Fair Lending Compliance: The Missing Data Problem In Nonmortgage Credit, Winnie F. Taylor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

State Attorneys General's Use Of Concurrent Public Enforcement Authority In Federal Consumer Protection Laws, Amy Widman, Prentiss Cox

Cardozo Law Review

Recent scholarly and legislative interest in state enforcement of federal law has led to the need for an empirical understanding of how and when these enforcement powers are used. This Article reports on an examination of the use by state attorneys general of sixteen federal consumer protection laws that expressly allow for state enforcement. The data are sorted and analyzed by both single state actions and multistate actions over time, and by the involvement of federal agencies in the state cases. The data reveal a measured use of such powers by state attorneys general and robust state and federal cooperation …