Public Justice

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 25, 2013 In Updates

Champion of Justice & TLOY Award Winners Honored in San Francisco

At the Public Justice Foundation’s 31st Annual Gala & Awards Dinner in San Francisco, Alan R. Brayton won the Champion of Justice Award, and Matthew Coyte and Jack Jacks were awarded the 2013 Trial Lawyers of the Year Award. As Executive Director Arthur Bryant said…

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…

July 9, 2013 In Blog

State DOMAs: The next frontier of litigation after the Supreme Court’s DOMA ruling

By Adele Kimmel, Managing Attorney The Supreme Court’s historic ruling striking down a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as unconstitutional is being hailed by advocates and supporters of gay rights as a milestone in our country’s march toward equal treatment for all…

June 27, 2013 In Updates

Supreme Court Grants Big Pharma Co. Immunity for Defectively Designed Drug

Today, ruling 5 to 4, the U.S. Supreme Court dramatically limited generic drug companies’ liability for manufacturing defectively designed drugs. The case is Mutual Pharmaceutical Co., Inc. v. Bartlett. In Bartlett, Public Justice filed an amici brief with the American Association for Justice. Plaintiff Karen…

June 26, 2013 In Blog

The Supreme Court’s majority: Undermining the rule of law with legal fictions

By Arthur Bryant, Executive Director The U.S. Supreme Court is supposed to stand for — and symbolize — the rule of law in America. This term, however, the Court’s majority has undermined the rule of law. And it has repeatedly used legal fictions to do…

June 24, 2013 In Blog

Bartlett: A nonsensical result required by neither law nor policy

By Claire Prestel, Staff Attorney I know everyone is eager for the Supreme Court’s rulings on gay marriage and voting rights. But don’t let the Court’s alarming ruling today on generic drugs get lost in the shuffle: By a 5-4 vote, reflecting the typical right/left…