Car Safety Regulations Save Lives

Consumers get so accustomed to certain safety measures that they forget (at least, often I forget) that they are the result of government mandates, many of which were resisted mightily by the industry now required to obey them. The National HIghway Traffic Safety Administration has released this report detailing the number of lives saved in the U.S. by seat belt use, airbags, and other safety measures. In 2010 alone, seat belt use saved over 12,500 lives, frontal airbags saved more than 2300 lives, child car seats saved 300 children from death, and motorcyle helmets saved more than 1550 lives. Most of these statistics concern safety features that combine a government mandate and voluntary consumer action. The latter (for instance, seat belt use) often has been achieved only after a sustained government-sponsored public relations campaign.

Did Defense Lawyer Tactics Kill An Asbestos Victim?

Mesothelioma is a horrible, deadly cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. An article in today's LA Times
asks the question whether asbestos defendants' insistence that an asbestos victim sit for 25 hours of depositions ended up killing him. Here's an excerpt:

John Johnson died three months ago, his body racked with malignant mesothelioma, a disease that's almost always caused by asbestos exposure. The Marine veteran had sued dozens of companies he believed shared responsibility for his condition, but he never got his day in court. Here's the horrific question now: Did asbestos industry lawyers deliberately drive Johnson to his death by putting him through a brutal series of depositions so their clients would save money? That's what his family, his doctor and his lawyers assert. Despite affidavits from his doctor stating that 12 hours of depositions over a few weeks would be about as much as the 69-year-old's health could stand, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge allowed the companies he was suing a total of 25 hours.

Of course, as the defense lawyer quoted in the article says, defendants are going to want the opportunity to ask the plaintiff questions. But 25 hours? In federal court, the presumption is that a deposition should last no more than one 7-hour day.

CL&P Blog Founder Deepak Gupta on the Future of Class Actions

Here. Deepak is perhaps better known for having argued Concepcion in the Supreme Court while he was with Public Citizen.  He has recently left the CFPB to concentrate on appellate litigation.  An excerpt:

Since wide-ranging legislation in unlikely, given corporations’ political influence, Gupta said, more targeted work by federal governmental agencies is needed to protect class actions.

 According to Gupta, an individual federal regulatory agency has the ability to interpret its own statutes and can take up the issues of arbitration and class action within its own jurisdiction.

The current case to watch, Gupta said, is a January decision in which the National Labor Relations Board ruled that a class-action ban in employment contracts is an unfair labor practice. D.R. Horton Inc. and Cuda, No. 12-CA-25764, 357 NLRB No. 184, 2012 WL 36274 (N.L.R.B. Jan. 3, 2012).

 

 

Fuel Economy Standards and More Fuel Efficient Cars

This new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council explains that rules demanding better vehicle fuel economy -- 54.5 miles per gallon by model year 2025, phased in gradually -- are prompting car manufactuers to provide many more choices in fuel efficient cars. For instance, the report notes, that for model year 2009, there were 5 compact/subcompact cars getting better than 30 miles per gallon; for model year 2012, there are 15.

More on the CFPB's On-Line College Cost Comparison Tool

We posted recently about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's on-line college cost comparison tool. Jay Gould has posted this critique of the tool.

House Financial Services Republicans Oppose Subjecting Bank Regulators to Congressional Appropriations Process--Except CFPB

by Jeff Sovern

Yesterday, Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee suggested that in response to the Republican proposal to subject the CFPB to the congressional appropriations process, other bank regulators, including the Fed and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, be subjected to that process (all three are currently funded independently).  House Republicans defeated the proposal for the Fed and the OCC while advancing the proposal to subject the CFPB to that process.  The Hill's On the Money Blog has more.  It is difficult to see why sauce for the goose is not also sauce for the gander.  As The Hill wrote:

Democrats contend that moving control of the bureau’s budget to Congress was less about oversight and more about GOP attempts to stifle it.

"This is the most blatant attempt to really defang and destroy the agency," Maloney said.

As Fewer Take the LSAT, Its Price Jumps

We've blogged about the large drop in the number of law school applicants. Not surprisingly, in the most recent cycle, the number of people taking the Law School Admission Test also dropped dramatically -- by 16%. So, hoping that demand to take the test is inelastic (among those otherwise inclined to take the test), the Law School Admisssion Council is raising the price of the test by 15%. Prior increases generally have been in line with inflation (that is, 2 to 5%). As Daniel Berstine, the Council's president puts it, "[i]t is now time for us to correct our fees in light of new volume realities, and to align them more closely with the true value of those services to law schools and their applicants." 

Troubling Reports on College Students and Debt

One, from Fox Business, is headed Survey: Students Fail the Credit Card Test, An excerpt:

American college students are laden with credit cards, use them frequently, and have no idea what they are doing. Consequently, they are swamped with debt -- and the problem is growing worse by the year.

* * *

The primary takeaways: 70% of American college students have credit cards, five of every six of those students do not know their cards' interest rates, 75% of them do not know their late payment charges and 70% of them do not know what their over-balance-limit fees might be.

The result is predictable -- more than 90% of college students who hold credit cards are carrying monthly credit card debt.

So should college students reduce their credit card debt by increasing student loans?  Maybe not.  The Wall Street Journal reports To Pay Off Loans, Grads Put Off Marriage, Children.  Here's a paragraph from that report:

Most students get little help from colleges in choosing loans or calculating payments. Most pre-loan counseling for government loans is done online, and many students pay only fleeting attention to documents from private lenders. Many borrowers "are very confused, and don't have a good sense of what they've taken on," says Deanne Loonin, an attorney for the National Consumer Law Center in Boston and head of its Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project.

SEC Stall Leaves Key Dodd-Frank Rules More Than A Year Overdue

As the Huffington Post reports, "[a] full year after the official deadline came and went, key regulations necessary to enforce the Dodd-Frank financial reform law remain unwritten, leaving vast areas of the financial market still vulnerable to self-destruction and failing to discourage corrupt practices overseas." The full article is here.

Amy Schmitz on the Squeaky Wheel System for Complaining Consumers

Amy Schmitz

 of Colorado has written Access to Consumer Remedies in the Squeaky Wheel System, 39 Pepperdine Law Review 279 (2012).  Here's the abstract:

This article explores the “Squeaky Wheel System” (“SWS”) in business-to-consumer (“B2C”) contexts, referring to merchants’ reservation of purchase remedies and other contract benefits for only the relatively few “squeaky wheel” consumers who have the requisite information and resources to persistently seek assistance. The article uncovers how this system fosters contractual discrimination and hinders consumers’ awareness and access with respect to contract remedies. It also adds empirical insights from my recent e-survey, and offers suggestions for using the internet to empower consumers of all economic and status levels with efficient and accessible means for learning about their purchase rights and asserting their legitimate contract complaints.