Consumer Law & Policy Blog

How Elizabeth Warren picked a fight with Brookings — and won

That's the title of this article by Tom Hamburger. Hamburger says his article describes the newest chapter in Senator Warren's "crusade against the power of wealthy interests."

Rare criminal trial over mine safety violations begins tomorrow

Tomorrow, former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship will stand trial in federal court in West Virginia for allegedly lethal violations of federal mine safety rules. From a Slate preview of the case:

Known for his in-your-face policies and politics, Blankenship is accused of creating a ruthless work culture that skimped on safety and employee well-being to improve the bottom line. Three investigators have concluded that his methods contributed to the explosion at the company’s Upper Big Branch deep mine at Montcoal, West Virginia, that killed 29 miners on April 5, 2010. It was the worst mine disaster in 40 years in this country.

Perhaps most significantly, reports Slate, the trial, which is expected to last a month or more, "is the first time in 150 years of Appalachian mining that the top boss of a coal firm has ever had to answer for how he ran his company."

It is heartening to see aggressive enforcement of worker safety laws. The more they are rigorously enforced, the less they can be ignored.

Read the entire Slate article, which dives into the many complexities of the case, here.

Why do 33 million Americans still lack health insurance?

As fivethirtyeight.com documented earlier this week, in spite of Obamacare’s extensions of health care coverage to millions of previously uninsured Americans, 33 million still don’t have coverage. Who are those people and why aren’t they covered? Some are noncitizen immigrants; others fall into the “Medicaid gap” (referring to the range of “incomes that were too high for Medicaid eligibility and too low to receive subsidies on the new health care exchanges”); yet others are young adults ("young invincibles") who have historically been difficult to convince to sign up. Aside from those categories, 14.4 million people remain uninsured. Why?

Fivethirtyeight has some ideas (about this question and all of these categories of uninsured), here. The bottom line is that we’re still far from achieving universal coverage.

CFPB reports on widespread servicing failures reported by student loan borrowers

The Consumer Financial Protection Board released today a report outlining widespread servicing failures reported by both federal and private student loan borrowers. According to the CFPB press release:

Consumers describe companies using a wide range of sloppy, patchwork practices that can create obstacles to repayment, raise costs, cause distress, and contribute to driving struggling borrowers to default. The Bureau has made it a priority to take action against companies that are engaging in illegal servicing practices, and that ongoing work includes addressing many of the problems outlined in today’s report. The Bureau also intends to explore potential industry-wide rules to increase borrower protections.

To address the harmful servicing practices identified through the Bureau’s public inquiry, the report includes recommendations to improve borrower outcomes and reduce defaults. "These recommendations stem from public comments received by the CFPB and a Joint Statement of Principles on Student Loan Servicing, released today by the CFPB, the U.S Department of the Treasury, and the U.S. Department of Education. The principles offer a roadmap for student loan servicing reform, including a call to establish clear and consistent industry-wide standards."

The CFPB press release is here. The report is here.

"How Many Deaths Did Volkswagen’s Deception Cause in the U.S.?"

The New York Times has an estimate:

Unlike the ignition defect in General Motors vehicles that caused at least 124 people to die in car crashes, Volkswagen pollution is harder to link to individual deaths. But it is clear to public health researchers that the air pollutants the cars illegally emitted damage health, and they have formulas for the number of lives lost from excess pollution in general. Indeed, the Environmental Protection Agency uses its own estimates of the health effects of air pollution to create its regulations of what’s allowed. After consulting with several experts in modeling the health effects of air pollutants, we calculated a death toll in the United States that, at its upper range, isn’t far off from that caused by the G.M. defect.

The full story is here.

FTC sues weight-loss company for use of non-disparagement clauses, among other violations

The FTC announced yesterday that it sued weight-loss company Roca Labs in federal court in Florida for making unsubstantiated claims about its products then trying to silence critics using a non-disparagement clause followed up by threats (a subject we've covered numerous times on this blog, see, e.g., here and here). The FTC's press statement explains:

In a complaint filed in federal court, the FTC alleges that Roca Labs, Inc.; Roca Labs Nutraceutical USA, Inc.; and their principals have sued and threatened to sue consumers who shared their negative experiences online or complained to the Better Business Bureau, stating that the consumers violated the non-disparagement provisions of the “Terms and Conditions” they supposedly agreed to when they bought the products. The FTC alleges that these gag clause provisions, and the defendants’ related warnings, threats, and lawsuits, harm consumers by unfairly barring purchasers from sharing truthful, negative comments about the defendants and their products....

According to the FTC’s complaint, the defendants advertised their weight-loss products, Roca Labs “Formula” and “Anti-Cravings” powder, via the Internet and through online search and social media advertising such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Facebook. The defendants represented their products as safe and effective alternatives to gastric bypass surgery. They also claimed that users could lose as much as 21 pounds in one month, and that users have a 90 percent success rate in achieving substantial weight loss.

This is the first FTC action I'm aware of involving a non-disparagement clause; it's encouraging to see federal enforcement to protect consumers' ability to criticize businesses and to receive information and opinion from other consumers. (Let's hope Congress gets in the game too and passes the bipartisan Consumer Review Freedom Act.)

Read the whole press release here. The complaint is here. 

Report chronicles modern debtors' prisons in New Hampshire

You might assume, based on our prior discussions of lawsuits over modern day debtors' prison practices in Georgia and Missouri (see here and here) that the practice of jailing people who can't pay court fines and fees is confined to the South.

An ACLU report last week discussing practices in New Hampshire shows otherwise. Among its findings was that "in 2013 New Hampshire judges jailed people who were unable to pay fines and without conducting a meaningful ability-to-pay hearing in an estimated 148 cases. In all of these cases, defendants were sent to jail without representation by counsel."

The whole report is here.

Paul Bland on Spotfiy's Arbitration Clause: Spotify Hits a Sour Note with Secretive Fine Print

Here, in the Daily Kos.  An excerpt:

If Spotify does something illegal, no one can ever know that a consumer is challenging it. And then, if an arbitrator did find that Spotify acted illegally (which is asking a lot, since Spotify will pick the private arbitration company that will, in turn, select the arbitrator to hear the case), whatever the result is must be kept secret.

Spotify’s timing couldn’t be worse. Large corporations are trying to keep big secrets from their consumers and the public. Volkswagen, for example, has been exposed for having rigged their cars to pass emissions tests, and then, shortly afterward, begin polluting at up to 40 times (!?) the amount allowable by law. And there’s a case right now in Pennsylvania federal courts, involving a software company that installed malware permitting the guys at the company to turn on a customer’s computer, activate their camera, and watch people in the presumed privacy of their own homes.  

(HT: Gregory Gauthier)

Consumer Reports on Arbitration Clauses

Here. Excerpt:

We believe that consumers should not be forced into arbitration. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should use its authority to stop forced arbitration in financial services; it recently announced it's holding a hearing on October 7 in Denver to discuss the topic, and may make an announcement then. Congress should enact legislation to make arbitration voluntary in other consumer contracts.

Ralph Nader opens American Museum of Tort Law

A timely counterweight to the troubling political movement to roll back regulations that protect public safety, the American Museum of Tort Law opened in Winsted, Connecticut this past weekend. As the NYT describes,

The museum aims to describe the evolution of the law regarding negligence and liability, and it features some of the most groundbreaking cases of the late 20th century. These include decisions involving the Dalkon Shield (a dangerous intrauterine device) and the Ford Pinto (whose gas tank was prone to explosive burning in accidents), as well as the historic lawsuits that laid low tobacco companies and the asbestos industry.

The founder is consumer advocacy pioneer Ralph Nader, who (according to the article)

also dreams of having drama students re-enact famous tort trials in a mock courtroom here and streaming the cases online to high schools, colleges and law schools. The staff hopes to arrange frequent school tours and to keep a visible online presence.

One exhibit is dedicated to Nader's most famous crusade -- the cause of auto safety -- and his book Unsafe at Any Speed.

The whole Times story is here.

Check out the museum's website, here.