Consumer Law & Policy Blog

Advocacy Group Releases Film Saying That Recent Supreme Court Decisions Are Anti-Consumer

As explained in this article by Todd Ruger, the "liberal public interest group [Alliance for Justice] in Washington released a new documentary Monday that focuses on three Supreme Court rulings that the group says has favored big businesses at the expense of consumers and victims of discrimination." Click here or on the video embedded below to view the film.

 

Should Supreme Court Justices Tell Us Why They Do and Do Not Recuse?

When a Supreme Court justice decides not to participate in a case, he or she is not required by law to say why (and rarely does). Similarly, when a party asks a Supreme Court justice to recuse and the justice doesn't, typically neither the justice nor the Court says why. In this extensive analysis, the New York City Bar has concluded that Supreme Court justices generally should publicly disclose the basis for their decisions to recuse and for denying a motion to disqualify them from participating in a case. This position is consistent with the position taken in The Supreme Court Transparency and Disclosure Act of 2011, which is pending before the Congress.

Paper on the Oldest Financial Institution

Paige Marta Skiba of Vanderbilt, Marieke Bos of Stockholm University - Swedish Institute for Social Research and Susan Carter of the United States Military Academy have written The Pawn Industry and Its Customers: The United States and Europe.  Here's the abstract:

As humankind’s oldest financial institution, pawnbroking has served the financial needs of low-income families for centuries. Recently, and especially in the last five years, an increasing number of consumers have relied on pawnbrokers to help them meet daily financial needs. Seven percent of all U.S. and four percent of all Swedish households have used pawn credit at one time or another. Despite the general public’s increased interest in the pawn industry, evidenced by the popularity of reality television shows like “Pawn Stars” and “Hard Core Pawn,” economists have paid surprisingly little attention to the pawnbroking industry and pawnshop borrowers. We start by reviewing the history of pawn credit and the sparse economic literature on pawnbroking, and then present unique U.S. transaction data and Swedish register data to, first, show aggregate trends, and, second, shed light on the social and financial background of pawnshop borrowers and their behavior within the pawnbroking industry in both countries. We find that the pawnbroking industry and pawnshop borrowers are unexpectedly similar in the United States and Sweden.

Minnesota BC/BS's Anti-Obesity Campaign

Sarah Kliff has penned this story about a controversial anti-obesity campaign run by Minnesota Blue Cross/Blue Shield. It includes this ad and this ad,both embedded below, about families that cannot stop eating, even though the parents appear to realize that the family culture that they are bestowing on their kids may be deadly.

 

 

Listen to (or read) about an NPR story on the ads here. (HT to SA.)

 

District Court in Kansas Rejects Class-Action Cy Pres Because It Doesn't Identify Recipients

In this decision issued on September 28, 2012, U.S. district judge Kathryn Vratil gave preliminary approval to most aspects of a complex class-action settlement but rejected a settlement provision that would have granted leftover settlement funds to unnamed governments or charities. By refusing to name the potential cy pres recipients, the court held, there was no way to tell whether the recipients would be tethered to the class members' interests or, rather, would be tied to the "whims" of counsel, the parties, or the court. Judge Vratil also noted that "the failure to designate a proposed cy pres recipient deprives class members of notice and the ability to object thereto." The relevant portion of Judge Vratil's opinion is reproduced after the jump. Her decision follows a spate of recent decisions on the class-action cy pres doctrine. To read about those rulings, go here, here, and here.

Self-Driving Cars Closer to Reality in California

This article by Jerry Hirsch tell us that, with a boost from new California legislation, self-driving cars are not terribly far away. The hope is that the cars will make driving easier and promote consumer safety:

Having a hard time parallel parking? Press a button on a touch screen and let the car park itself. Want to stay a safe distance from the car ahead while traveling 65 mph? Switch on adaptive cruise control and let a radar-linked computer handle the accelerator, slowing and speeding your vehicle to keep pace.The assisted-driving technologies that just a few years ago seemed so futuristic are already here, bringing the auto industry one step closer to a George Jetson-like world where drivers may no longer have to drive.

Last week, Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that establishes a regulatory framework for allowing self-driving cars on California roads. The push to build a self-driving car is a joint effort between Google and Cal Tech (along with other organizations). Google co-founder Sergey Brin says that “[t]hese vehicles have the potential to avoid accidents.… We can save lives, create jobs and reduce congestion. I expect that self-driving cars will be far safer than human driven cars.”

The California legislation is known as S.B. 1298. You can read the whole bill, as signed by Governor Brown, or go to the bill's home page, which provides links to all versions of the bill as it progressed through the California Legislature plus a nice abstract of the bill's provisions.