Consumer Protection Law Commons^™

Negligent Ai Speech: Some Thoughts About Duty, Jane R. Bambauer

UF Law Faculty Publications

Careless speech has always existed on a very large scale. When people talk, they often give bad advice or wrong information, and occasionally this leads the listener to act in a way that causes physical harm. The scale was made more visible by the public Internet as the musings and conversations of billions of participants became accessible and searchable to all. This dynamic produced a set of tort and free speech principles that we have debated and adjusted to over the last three decades.

AI speech systems bring a new dynamic. Unlike the disaggregated production of misinformation in the Internet …

Reconceptualizing Bankruptcy Education Requirements For Incarcerated Debtors, Sydney Calas

Emory Bankruptcy Developments Journal

In the eighteen years since Congress enacted the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA), bankruptcy scholars and professionals have launched countless critiques against two of the Act’s more drastic amendments: (1) mandatory pre-filing credit counseling and (2) a mandatory post-filing financial management course. Without completing the pre-filing requirement, one cannot qualify as a debtor under the Code and is thus barred from filing for bankruptcy. Without completing the post-filing requirement, one cannot receive a discharge. Notwithstanding the volume and breadth of valid criticisms, the specific harm of BAPCPA’s education requirements has been largely ignored for one population: incarcerated …

Senate Bill 2-A: The Laws It Changed And Its Impact On Past, Present, And Future Claims, Michael A. Cassel

St. Thomas Law Review

Florida was admitted as the 27th state on March 3, 1845. For the majority of its existence as a state, consumer protections have been a cornerstone of Florida insurance law. In 1893, as the state grew, the Florida legislature enacted the first statute which authorized the recovery of reasonable attorney fees against life and fire insurance companies. In 1982, recognizing the need for further consumer protections, Florida created the Civil Remedy statute authorizing a first-party civil action against insurers due to bad faith conduct; however, despite such consumer protections remaining necessary to “level the playing field” between corporations and consumers, …

Universal Forms Of Influence: Support For Women On Boards, Cindy A. Schipani, Paula J. Caproni

Seattle University Law Review

There are various efforts underway to increase gender diversity on corporate boards, including legislation in California, a recent SEC approved comply or explain rule for companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange, and efforts by institutional investors such as State Street and BlackRock to recognize the value diversity brings to corporate decisionmaking. Although some of these efforts are being contested in the courts, many companies have begun to comply with these initiatives.

This Article is organized as follows. Part I provides an overview of several efforts to increase gender diversity on boards along with numerous research studies showcasing the benefits …

“Statistics Are Human Beings With The Tears Wiped Away”: Utilizing Data To Develop Strategies To Reduce The Number Of Native Americans Who Go Missing, Lori Mcpherson, Sarah Blazucki

Seattle University Law Review

On New Year’s Eve night, 2019, sixteen-year-old Selena Shelley Faye Not Afraid attended a party in Billings, Montana, about fifty miles west of her home in Hardin, Montana, near the Crow Reservation. A junior at the local high school, she was active in her community. The party carried over until the next day, and she caught a ride back toward home with friends in a van the following afternoon. When the van stopped at an interstate rest stop, Selena got out but never made it back to the van. The friends reported her missing to the police and indicated they …

Layered Fiduciaries In The Information Age, Zhaoyi Li

Indiana Law Journal

Technology companies such as Facebook have long been criticized for abusing customers’ personal information and monetizing user data in a manner contrary to customer expectations. Some commentators suggest fiduciary law could be used to restrict how these companies use their customers’ data.1 Under this framework, a new member of the fiduciary family called the “information fiduciary” was born. The concept of an information fiduciary is that a company providing network services to “collect, analyze, use, sell, and distribute personal information” owes customers and end-users a fiduciary duty to use the collected data to promote their interests, thereby assuming fiduciary liability …

The Private Attorney General In A Time Of Hyper-Polarized Politics, Myriam E. Gilles

Articles

With the enactment of the Federal Trade Commission Act (“FTC Act”) in 1914 and the Wheeler–Lea Act in 1938, Congress sought to establish a brawny federal consumer protection regime to guard against the myriad unfair and deceptive practices that threatened harm to American consumers. But courts in this era interpreted these statutes to confer exclusive enforcement authority in the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), declining to infer a private right of action. For many decades, the resulting enforcement gap in consumer protection law was filled largely by state Unfair and Deceptive Practices Acts (“UDAPs”), which sanction litigation by both public and …

Consumer Uncertainty In Trademark Law: An Experimental Investigation, Barton Beebe, Roy Germano, Christopher Jon Sprigman, Joel H. Steckel

Emory Law Journal

Nearly every important issue in trademark litigation turns on the question of what consumers in the marketplace believe to be true. To address this question, litigants frequently present consumer survey evidence, which can play a decisive role in driving the outcomes of trademark disputes. But trademark survey evidence has often proven to be highly controversial, not least because it has sometimes been perceived as open to expert manipulation. In this Article, we identify and present empirical evidence of a fundamental problem with trademark survey evidence: while the leading survey formats in trademark law test for whether consumers hold a particular …

The Case For Green Product Fixing: Reconciling Antitrust Law With Self-Regulation To Combat Climate Change, Peter Brigham

Emory Law Journal

As corporations continue to prioritize environmental, social, and governance (ESG) improvements alongside profit, cooperation with competitors may be an important part of their toolbox. In particular, cooperation can help to advance initiatives like the elimination of an unsustainable product type, which is a drastic step a corporation likely would not take on its own for fear of hurting its bottom line and customer loyalty. The issue is that agreements among competitors to engage in such steps may violate antitrust laws, as suggested by the Justice Department in the Trump administration and numerous state attorneys general.

This Comment uses the term …

Hired By A Machine: Can A New York City Law Enforce Algorithmic Fairness In Hiring Practices?, Lindsey Fuchs

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

Workplace antidiscrimination laws must adapt to address today’s technological realities. If left underregulated, the rapidly expanding role of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) in hiring practices has the danger of creating new, more obscure modes of discrimination. Companies use these tools to reduce the duration and costs of hiring and potentially attract a larger pool of qualified applicants for their open positions. But how can we guarantee that these hiring tools yield fair outcomes when deployed? These issues are just starting to be addressed at the federal, state, and city levels. This Note tackles whether a new city law can be improved …

Exploring Financial Data Protection And Civil Liberties In An Evolved Digital Age, Amanda Lindner

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

There is no comprehensive financial privacy law that can protect consumers from a company’s collection sharing and selling of consumer data. The most recent federal financial privacy law, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (“GLBA”), was enacted by Congress over 20 years ago. Vast technological and financial changes have occurred since 1999, and financial privacy law is due for an upgrade.

As a result, loopholes exist where companies can share financial data without being subject to laws or regulations. Additionally, federal financial privacy related laws provide little to no recourse for consumers to self-remediate with litigation, also known as a private right of …

Semantics And Sin Tax: Maintaining Autonomy In The Age Of Hyper-Personalization, Stephen Kohn

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nestlé V. Doe: A Death Knell To Corporate Human Rights Accountability?, Phillip Ayers

Seattle University Law Review

The Supreme Court in Nestlé v. Doe held that foreign plaintiffs who claimed to be victims of overseas tortious conduct by corporate defendants had no jurisdiction to sue in federal courts using the Alien Tort Statute. This Comment looks at the history of the Alien Tort Statute, from its inspiration, long dormancy, and recent reinvigoration beginning in the 1980s. The Comment then explores the background of Nestlé and its issues with child slavery in its cocoa supply chain. From there, the Comment analyzes the Nestlé v. Doe decision, and posits an alternative outcome. Finally, this Comment looks for a new …

Student Loans And Financial Distress: A Qualitative Analysis Of The Most Common Student Loan Complaints, Matthew Adam Bruckner, Christopher J. Ryan Jr.

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Student loan servicers are the face of the U.S. student loan system, and they are not well-liked. Using the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (the CFPB) consumer complaint database, we study borrower perceptions of the student loan system. We qualitatively analyzed a sample of complaint narratives drawn from every student loan complaint ever filed with the CFPB. Our analysis of these complaint narratives reveals clear patterns of discontent in four primary areas: 1) a mismatch between ability to repay and repayment options, including problems with forbearance, deferments, the public service loan forgiveness program, income-driven repayment plans, and loan cancellation options; 2) …

Duped By Dope: The Sackler Family’S Attempt To Escape Opioid Liability And The Need To Close The Non-Debtor Release Loophole, Bryson T. Strachan

Law Student Publications

The opioid epidemic continues to rage on in the United States, ravaging its rural populations. One of its main causes? OxyContin. Purdue Pharma (“Purdue”), the maker of OxyContin, aggressively marketed opioids to the American public while racking up a fortune of over $13 billion dollars for its owners,3 the Sackler family. As a result, roughly 3,000 lawsuits were filed against Purdue and members of the Sackler family. Generally, the lawsuits alleged that Purdue and members of the Sackler family knew OxyContin was highly addictive yet aggressively marketed high dosages of the drug and misrepresented the drug as nonaddictive and without …

Closing The Cracks And The Courts: A Comparative Analysis Of Debt Collection Regulation In The United Kingdom And The United States, Tasia S. Harris

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Consumers who borrow from a lender today cannot count on dealing with that same lender later if they default on their debt. In today's world of debt collection, the lender will outsource collection to a thirdparty debt collector, or those consumers' defaulted debt will be bought and sold numerous times for pennies on the dollar until eventually a debt buyer decides to pursue payment. Either way, under the current US debt collection laws and regulations, both third-party debt collectors and debt buyers can act outside the scope of debt collection regulation in the United States, and many will take that …

The Disrupted Path To Becoming Easy, Breezy, Beautiful: How Companies Are Deceiving Consumers With Their Animal Testing Products, Wendy Chao

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Power Of Influence: Standardizing The Influencer Marketing Industry Through Alternative Dispute Resolution, Michele Lehat

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Arbitration In The United States: Textualism, A Tectonic Shift, And A Reshaping Of The Civil Justice System, Imre S. Szalai

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

No abstract provided.

Corporate Governance And Gender Equality: A Study Of Comply-Or-Explain Disclosure Regulation, Aaron A. Dhir, Sarah Kaplan, Maria Arabella Robles

Seattle University Law Review

In 2020, the Nasdaq Stock Market filed a proposal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission seeking permission to adopt a board diversity-related disclosure requirement for its listed companies. In 2021, the SEC approved the proposal, thus entrenching Nasdaq’s position as the most significant stock exchange to date to mandate listing rules that reflect the intention of diversifying corporate boardrooms. Nasdaq’s movement into the diversity space is not the first attempt to address homogeneous boards in the U.S. In 2009, the SEC adopted a rule requiring publicly traded firms to report on whether they consider diversity in identifying director nominees. …