Blog

September 4, 2013 In Blog

Today’s Arbitration Outrage: Second Circuit Says Destitute New York Resident Consumer Must Arbitrate Case in Arizona

By Paul Bland, Senior Attorney @PblandBland Periodically, people ask me rhetorical questions like, “How much worse can the law of arbitration get? I mean, it’s so incredibly bad that it has to have bottomed out, right?” As Jane Wagner famously wrote, no matter how cynical you…

August 28, 2013 In Blog

When Consumer Protection and Tribal Sovereignty Collide

By Amy Radon, Staff Attorney Western Sky Financial, a payday loan company affiliated with the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, announced yesterday that it is exiting the payday lending business effective next week. I don’t think anyone would dispute that Western Sky’s decision is in the…

August 9, 2013 In Blog

“Fertilizer” manure? Suit against mega-dairies could lead to CAFOs complying with RCRA

By Jessica Culpepper, Food Safety & Health Attorney Earlier this summer, in our series of cases against five mega-dairies in Washington State, U.S. District Judge Thomas Rice denied the defendants’ motions to dismiss. This was an important win. The lawsuit that Public Justice and the…

August 9, 2013 In Blog

Outraged by the FISA Court operating in secrecy? Then you should be about our civil courts too

By Amy Radon, Staff Attorney It’s about time for the plaintiffs’ bar to get serious about the issue of court secrecy and take corporate wrongdoers to task when they try to restrict public access to discovery materials, court records, and settlements that belong in the…

August 8, 2013 In Blog

Tragic ending after alleged discrimination against pregnant Albertson’s employee

By Claire Prestel, Staff Attorney Last week, my colleague Vicky Ni blogged about EEOC v. Houston Funding II, Ltd., the Fifth Circuit’s ruling that discrimination against breastfeeding workers is discrimination against women. That’s a great (long-overdue!) victory, but as Vicky mentioned, the sad truth is…

August 7, 2013 In Blog

CFPB surveying consumers to see what, if anything, they know about arbitration

By Paul Bland, Senior Attorney One of the most important provisions of the landmark Dodd-Frank Act was giving the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau the power to ban or regulate the use of forced arbitration clauses by lenders subject to its jurisdiction. Predictably, this…

August 2, 2013 In Blog

Activist Seventh Circuit panel helps out payday lender by re-writing arbitration clause picking corrupt firm

By Paul Bland, Senior Attorney In the race to the bottom to insulate corporations from wrongdoing using forced arbitration, two judges in the Seventh Circuit just made a bid for one of the most anti-consumer decisions of the year. For many years, the National Arbitration…

July 30, 2013 In Blog

DirecTV gets get-out-of-jail-free card, but not Best Buy

By Spencer Wilson and Paul Bland Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a great decision for consumers in Murphy v. DirecTV. On the plus side, the court allowed cheated consumers to pursue their legal claims against Best Buy, which was…

July 30, 2013 In Blog

The facts of life

By Victoria Ni, Senior Attorney Sometime during early childhood, I’m sure you picked up these facts of life: Only women can bear children, and only women can produce breastmilk. It’s human biology. There are no exceptions. But for courts, nothing — not even human biology…

July 16, 2013 In Blog

Solitary confinement: What the Shawshank Redemption doesn’t teach us

By Adrian Alvarez, Goldberg-Robb Attorney “He is a man buried alive; to be dug out in the slow round of years,” Charles Dickens wrote in 1842 after visiting prisoners living for years in solitary confinement at a penitentiary outside Philadelphia. Back then, solitary confinement was…