Consumer Law & Policy Blog

CPSC issues rule to protect children from strangulation by window covering cords. Industry association sues.

Nearly half of the children caught in cords for shades, blinds, or other window coverings die -- close to 100 kids died of strangulation from window covering cords in 2021 -- according to data from the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Two years ago, Canada announced a regulation strictly limiting the length of window covering cords and adopting other requirements to protect children. The regulation went into effect earlier this year.

On November 28, the CPSC issued a similar regulation. The CPSC regulation applies to window coverings manufactured after after next May.

Two days later, the Window Coverings Manufacturers Ass'n sued the CPSC, trying to block the rule. The case is pending in the D.C. Circuit.

Tobacco companies challenge California law barring sales of flavored tobacco products

Having lost a motion for a preliminary injunction in the lower courts, various tobacco companies are asking the Supreme Court to enjoin a California law banning the sale of flavored tobacco products from going into effect as scheduled on December 22. The companies argue that the federal Tobacco Control Act preempts the state law and that enjoining the stat law is in the public interest.

The request for an injunction is here. Th Hill reported on the filing here.

Appeal tests corporate strategy to bar mass arbitration

Alison Frankl at Reuters writes that a pending appeal asks the Ninth Circuit to approve arbitration provisions that block "mass arbitrations."

As the article explains: "Verizon’s consumer contract, in essence, eliminates consumers’ ability to arbitrate en masse, thus neutralizing their leverage from the steep initial arbitration fees companies are required to pay under AAA rules. The telecom’s consumer contract mandates that if more than 25 customers who are represented by the same plaintiffs' firm file similar demands for arbitration, the cases are to be arbitrated in batches of only 10 at a time, five picked by plaintiffs' lawyers and five by defendants."

Consumer lawyers worry that the provisions are designed to increase the cost of prosecuting claims by consumers, while reducing corporations' defense costs.

The issue arose in a case against Verizon in which customers claim that the company deceptively tacked on administrative fees to their monthly wireless bills.

Briefing is underway. No argument date has been set.

WSJ: Credit repairers deluging credit bureaus and FTC with false ID theft claims, impairing credit report accuracy and slowing the granting of loans

Here, in an article by AnnaMaria Andriotis, an excellent reporter on consumer protection issues (behind paywall). The practice, known as credit washing, often leads to temporary removal of the damaging item from the consumer's credit report, and a correspondingly evanescent improvement in the consumer's credit score. Excerpt:

Credit washing has slowed down the process of getting loans at some banks while lenders look for other ways to evaluate potential borrowers. It has added to questions about how useful credit scores really are and eroded banks’ confidence in the credit-reporting system they have relied on for decades.

Equifax, Experian and TransUnion get millions of letters each year that allege errors on credit reports, many claiming identity theft, according to people familiar with the matter. It isn’t known how many are illegitimate claims. Sometimes the companies receive batches of similar letters claiming identity theft or other issues at once—mailed from the same ZIP Code on the same date, some with the same typos, according to the people and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.