compensation
If a retailer doesn't protect your credit card data and it gets stolen, should you be compensated? Not for any unauthorized charges, which are already covered under banks' zero-liability protection, but for the time lost dealing with the problem, for the anxiety it causes, and for any future credit history/score issues it might cause?
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preemption
Two recent
Supreme Court cases on federal
pre-emption have made a mess of tort law, confusing and endangering consumers by holding that a patient who is injured by a dangerous drug can sue the manufacturer, but a patient injured by a dangerous medical device cannot. How this happened, and what to do about it, inside.
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pre-emption
The
Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of
Diana Levine in Wyeth v. Levine. Levine, a musician, had her
arm amputated when an anti-nausea drug was improperly administered in her artery, and sued the manufacturer for failing to warn of the risks on the drug's label. Wyeth claimed that her case was
pre-empted by federal law.
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wyeth
"Pre-emption" is a legal doctrine that says the federal government can claim all regulatory power over an area or subject, barring states from acting on their own. The drug maker Wyeth has brought a case before the Supreme Court arguing that a woman in Vermont, who lost her arm due to a drug complication that Wyeth knew about but did not publicize, cannot sue them in state court because of pre-emption. Wyeth says that
only the FDA has the power to regulate it—and since the FDA approved Wyeth's drug label, it's the FDA's responsibility. We think Wyeth is pretending to care about federal-versus-state power in an attempt to weasel out of any responsibility.
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Spherion
Thomas Amschwand knew he was dying and did everything in his power to make sure his wife would be able to collect his $426,000 life insurance policy. Yet when the 30-year-old succumbed to heart cancer, his employer, Spherion, a temporary staffing company, told his widow Melissa that she would receive nothing.
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utilities
Westerners are stuck paying $3 billion to
energy companies that colluded to gang-rape the free market. California, Washington, and Nevada were planning to return the money to customers, but the Supreme Court recently ruled that the industry manipulated the market, fair and square.
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law
The Supreme Court is currently considering
whether to halve the punitive damages levied against Exxon for its massive 1989 oil spill from the Exxon Valdez tanker, from the current $2.5 billion to something more like $1 billion. Exxon claims the higher number amounts to excessive punishment. According to the New York Times, the decision may come down to a tie with four justices on either side; Justice Alito is not participating because he owns Exxon Mobile stock. The Exxon Valdez disaster "caused a 3,000-square-mile oil slick and still affects Alaska's fisheries after nearly 19 years."
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arbitration
TV's "Judge Alex" is probably less a fan of arbitration that you'd think, according to CNN. He's been handed a Supreme Court decision that forces him back into the waiting arms of the American Arbitration Association.
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news from the swamp
The Supreme Court ruled today in Leegin v. PSKS that manufacturers can collude with
retailers to set the minimum prices of products, arguing that such a decision was good for competition. Succumbing to the court's recent bender of conservatism is a 96 year-old precedent from Dr. Miles v Park that held minimum price accords as intrinsically - or in legalese, "per se" - illegal. Writing for the majority, swing-Justice Anthony Kennedy showed kiddies the dangers of taking crazy pills:
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patents
As follow-up to our recent post on the patenting of scientific facts and products of nature, here's a decent article on the issues at stake in the B Vitamin Case currently being argued by the Supreme Court.
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cell phones
Speaking of crappy cell phone providers, we've long been aggrieved by the providers' one-sided
contracts. Sign up for a cellphone and all you are really guaranteeing a company like Verizon, Sprint or T-Mobile is that, over the course of the next year, you will continue to pay them whatever arbitrary monthly fee that they spontaneously dream up, regardless whether or not that is the fee you initially agreed to.
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Consumerist
spam
The Supreme Court rejected T-Mobile's appeal in 3 cases yesterday, which means an earlier federal ruling that says states "can refuse to enforce arbitration clauses if they include bans on class actions" will stand. Now T-Mobile has to go back to state courts to deal with the class action lawsuits against it. [Associated Press]
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