Consumer Law & Policy Blog

For-Profit Colleges and the Military

In this NY Times article, Holly Petraeus, the head of servicemember affairs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, explains how for-profit colleges prey on members of the military and their families. She begins the article this way:

Military personnel and their families are finding themselves under siege from for-profit colleges. A number of these schools focus on members of the armed forces with aggressive and often misleading marketing, and then provide little academic, administrative or counseling support once the students are enrolled.

Take a look at this Frontline piece on the same phenomenon.

Elizabeth Warren on "Class Warfare" and Taxing the Rich

Sounds like a formidable candidate here:

 

CFPB Expected to Propose New Mortgage Rules Next Year

Here.  The rules would change the Truth in Lending disclosure forms and implement the Dodd-
Frank provisions barring mortgage loans consumers can't repay.

Arthur Alan Wolk Gets Overlawyered to Take Down Its Criticisms

by Paul Alan Levy

Over the past couple of months, I have blogged (here and here) about Arthur Alan Wolk’s campaign of intimidation against anybody and everybody who reported in unfavorable terms about his litigation against Walter Olson, Ted Frank and Overlawyered for having criticized his handling of a piece of litigation.  The result was an new barrage of blogging about Wolk, bringing the Streisand effect to bear with a vengeance.

Wolk responded by threatening to sue me, as well as Techdirt and Scott Greenfield over their comments; he actually did sue me for about a week, although he dropped that action while muttering about how he was going to sue me later.  But with Techdirt, Greenfield and me, Wolk encountered a new phenomenon — bloggers who refused to cower before his threats, and even invited him to file suit if he thought he had a valid claim.  He has not done so, and I am confident that his bullying in that regard is at an end.  Note to other bloggers tempted to comment on Wolk: coraggio!

Wolk recently settled his lawsuits against Reason Magazine and against the Overlawyered defendants, and yesterday the defendants announced that settlement.  Reason posted a statement defiantly promising to keep its previous posts about Wolk online, but turning off the comment feature for the claimed purpose of protecting readers against being sued for what they might say in response.   Overlawyered went a bit further.

Interesting Article on Impact of AT&T v. Concepcion

Earlier this week, Bob Sullivan posted an interesting article about the impact of AT&T v. Concepcion. The article includes some specific examples of consumers whose cases were derailed by the Court's decision. The article is available here.

The Affordable Care Act Does What It Says It Does: More Under 26-Year-Old Adults Are Insured on Their Parents' Health Plans

The Affordable Care Act requires health insurers to cover the children of their insureds up to age 26. Before this mandate, many insurers cut kids off when they became adults or after they left full-time education. You'd expect the new provision to make a difference. After all, it requires coverage for people whom insurers did not have to cover before. (Its effect on rates is unknown, but I'd guess the new provision has had at least some upward effect on rates.) As it turns out, because young adults are having all sorts of problems finding work (and work that offers health insurance), this provision has made a big difference. Read about that here. For information on how the up-to-age-26 provision works, go to this website.

More on the Tobacco Industry's Suit Against the Government to Nix the FDA's New Package Labels

Last June, we told you about the new graphic tobacco package labels slated to go into effect in November 2012. One of those labels is pictured to the right. After that, we told you about Big Tobacco's suit claiming that requiring the companies to display the government's labels violates the First Amendment. The tobacco companies are seeking a preliminary injunction against the labeling requirement. Here's a story about today's preliminary injunction hearing held in federal district court in Washington, D.C.

First Circuit Revives Large Illegal Downloading Award Against Boston University Student

As explained in this National Law Journal story, the First Circuit has reversed a district court decision holding that a $675,000 damages award for illegal music downloading against Boston University student Joel Tenenbaum was unconstitutionally excessive. The case now goes back to the district court to determine whether the verdict should be remitted under common-law principles. The First Circuit's ruling is here.

Don't Mess with Texas: Dallas County Sues MERS for Unpaid Recording Fees

Yesterday afternoon Dallas County, Texas sued MERS, along with Bank of America, a local Texas lender, and a Texas title insurance company to recover unpaid recording fees. The lawsuit alleges that recorded deeds of trust characterizeing MERS as a deed of trust beneficiary are false statements designed to deprive the county of recording fee revenue. The complaint asserts several theories for recovery including unjust enrichment, negligent misrepresentation, fraud, and violation of a Texas false recording statute. The latter is particularly interesting because it includes a large statutory penalty of $10,000 per occurence.

The complaint, which was filed in state court, appears to have no federal questions and lacks complete diversity, suggesting that successful removal to federal court is unlikely.The team of attorneys assisting Dallas County appear to be well capitalized and sophisticated. (I have proposed lawsuits along these lines here.)

While the potential liability in this case alone is not staggering (a few billion if the statutory penalty theory works), if Dallas wins this lawsuit, other counties in Texas and around the country are likely to follow suit.  But perhaps more important for the future, this lawsuit has the potential to effectively reassert the traditional mortgage and deed of trust theory that MERS effectively ignored. This case, and others like it, are likely to determine whether elected county recorders will remain a relevant in coming generations. The courts adjudicating these cases are going to be forced to confront whether property records will be maintained in transparent legally authoritative public systems maintained by democratically elected local officials or in a secret database maintained by a profit oriented corporation that is owned by banks. Whatever the outcome, this case demands attention from anyone interested in mortgage lending.

Does Sarah Palin Favor Consumer Protection?

Ok, so she didn't actually say anything about consumer protection, but an article in the Times from September 9 (I'm behind in my reading), Some of Sarah Palin's Ideas Cross the Political Divide, has some unexpected (at least to me) statements from Palin that argue for protecting people against big business.  An excerpt:

She made three interlocking points. First, that the United States is now governed by a “permanent political class,” drawn from both parties, that is increasingly cut off from the concerns of regular people. Second, that these Republicans and Democrats have allied with big business to mutual advantage to create what she called “corporate crony capitalism.” Third, that the real political divide in the United States may no longer be between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private).

* * *

“This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk,” she said of the crony variety. She added: “It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest — to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners — the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70 percent of the jobs in America.”