The federal judge overseeing a lawsuit filed by more than a dozen states to stop President Trump’s plan to cut off billions of dollars in payments to health insurance providers has decided to not issue a preliminary injunction preventing the White House from halting the subsidies. [More]
lawsuits
Judge Won’t Block Trump’s Plan To Halt Billions In Cost-Sharing Payments To Health Insurers
By 10.25.17
California Accuses Retailer Of Using Bait-And-Switch Tactics To Lure In Customers
By 10.20.17
A Los Angeles-area chain of retail stores is accused by the state of repeatedly misleading customers into thinking they were going to get a good price on merchandise only to be told after they get into the store that the only way to get that advertised price is if they spend more money. [More]
Artist Sues Hotel, Claiming His Paintings Became Infested With Bedbugs, Were Used In Porn Shoots
By 10.20.17
Hotel guests are notorious for treating their temporary living quarters with utter disregard; the phrase “trashing a hotel room” has been part of cultural parlance since at least the dawn of the rock star. Even the poshest of resorts often fall victim to their guests’ worst proclivities. In spite of all the obvious risk involved, one artist thought it would be a good idea to not only have his artwork displayed throughout a luxury hotel, but to install that artwork in the form of headboards. Now he’s suing the hotel after finding out that guests have apparently been treating his art like any other piece of hotel furniture — which, obviously, includes being in the background of porn videos. [More]
States Accuse Betsy DeVos Of Failing To Protect Students From Sketchy For-Profit Schools
By 10.17.17
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has made no effort to hide her support for the for-profit education industry, going so far as to hit “reset” on rules intended to protect students from schools that provide minimal education at a maximum cost. Now, a coalition of 18 state attorneys general are suing DeVos and the Dept. of Education, alleging they failed to hold these schools accountable. [More]
United Passenger Blames Airline For Drunk Man Who Urinated On Him During Flight
By 10.17.17
Airline passengers have to deal with all manner of human menace — whether it’s that inconsiderate person in the aisle seat eating a tuna sandwich, the charming child repeatedly kicking the back of your seat while his parents pretend not to notice, or the dude next to you voiding his bladder on your leg. At what point does another passenger’s transgression become the fault of the airline? [More]
Supreme Court Will Decide If American Express Can Stop Stores From Encouraging Customers To Use Less-Expensive Cards
By 10.16.17
If you have multiple credit cards in your wallet, you probably decide which one to use based on factors like each card’s interest rate, current balance, and rewards programs. Merchants want to make that choice easier by offering discounts or other incentives for using cards that cost the retailer less to process, but American Express forbids its merchants from offering such deals, but it will soon be up to the Supreme Court to decide whether or not that’s legal. [More]
States Sue Trump Administration For Halting $7 Billion In Cost-Sharing Payments To Insurers
By 10.13.17
With a one-paragraph statement released late in the evening on Thursday, President Trump announced he was pulling the plug on $7 billion a year in payments from the federal government to insurance companies who sell individual policies through the exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act. Today, at least five states say they are suing to keep these subsidies in place. [More]
Judge Reins In DOJ’s Attempt To Get Info On Users Of Anti-Trump Site
By 10.10.17
A judge in Washington, D.C., has thrown a wrench into the Justice Department’s effort to collect information on people who communicated through a website site critical of President Trump, ruling that the DOJ “does not have the right to rummage through the information” on the site to “discover the identity of, or access communications by, individuals not participating in alleged criminal activity.” [More]
California Sues To Stop Trump Administration Rollback Of Insurance Birth Control Requirement
By 10.6.17
Within hours of the Trump Administration announcing two new rules that would allow businesses to opt out of offering their employees insurance that covers birth control, the attorney general for the state of California has filed a lawsuit to block the regulations from going into effect. [More]
L.L. Bean Sued For Using The Word “Outsider” In Ad Campaign
By 10.6.17
L.L. Bean is arguably the apparel brand most widely associated with the outdoors, but when the plaid-clad company dared to use the term “outsider” in a marketing campaign, it put its duck boot into a bit of a legal mess. [More]
Judge Opens Door To Let All Wisconsin Home Bakers Sell Their Cookies, Cakes, Pies
By 10.5.17 — Updated: 10.6.17
Things just got a lot sweeter for Wisconsin home bakers looking to make a buck off their baked goods. A state judge has clarified that his recent ruling against the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture means that anyone in the state who wants to sell home-baked goods is free to do so. [More]
Wells Fargo Can’t Shake Shareholder Lawsuit Over Fake Accounts
By 10.5.17
Wells Fargo has spent the last year and change mired in scandal, after it came to light that, under pressure from the organization, employees had fraudulently opened as many as 3.5 million accounts in the names of people who never wanted or requested them. Since then, the bank has been doing its best to wriggle out of the numerous lawsuits, with mixed results. This week, a judge ruled that Wells can’t avoid accountability in one suit brought by shareholders. [More]
Big Tobacco Will Admit In New Ads That All Cigarettes Are Bad For You, Intentionally Addictive
By 10.4.17
Eleven years after a federal court ordered the country’s biggest cigarette producers to produce a series of warning ads informing people about the dangers of their products, Big Tobacco is finally preparing to publish those “corrective statements” in TV ads, newspapers, online, and in cigarette packaging. [More]
Supreme Court Allows For Rare Win In Customers’ Lawsuit Against Samsung
By 10.3.17
The Supreme Court has a long history of ruling against consumers when it involves a company’s attempt to strip its customers of their right to a day in court, but this week the nation’s highest court decided to not hear an appeal in a lawsuit involving Samsung, marking a rare instance in which SCOTUS came down on the consumers’ side in this issue. [More]
Chamber Of Commerce Files Lawsuit To Stop American Consumers From Being Able To File Lawsuits
By 9.29.17
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce may sound like a government agency or a quaint organization of helpful business leaders, but it is, in fact, the single largest lobbying organization in the country, spending nearly $104 million last year alone on lobbying, about $40 million more than any other group. The Chamber also thinks the U.S. Constitution is mistaken, that the Sixth and Seventh Amendments don’t apply to consumers; that the mere fact you are a customer should strip you of your constitutional right to sue banks like Wells Fargo or credit bureaus like Equifax when they open millions of bogus accounts in customers’ names or fail to protect sensitive information for more than 100 million people.
And how does the Chamber of Commerce plan to stop the American people from being able to bring lawsuits? By doing the one thing it doesn’t want you to be able to do. [More]
State Says OxyContin Maker “Conducted Uncontrolled Experiment On American Public”
By 9.28.17
The state of Washington and the City of Seattle filed separate lawsuits today against Purdue Pharma, maker of controversial opioid pain medication OxyContin, alleging that the drug company lied to doctors, regulators, and the public about the efficacy and safety of a drug that many place at the center of the ongoing opioid epidemic. [More]
Maker Of Banana Costume Claims Kmart Is Ripping Off Its Design
By 9.28.17
I have never received as many high fives for a Halloween costume than the year a friend and I dressed as giant bananas with huge cartoon hands. But despite the ubiquity of these fruity outfits — as a simple Internet search will show you — the maker of one banana costume is accusing Kmart of dropping it as a vendor in order to sell its own alleged knockoff version. [More]
Bob’s Discount Furniture Accused Of Falsely Claiming Its Mattress Is Same As Serta But Cheaper
By 9.28.17
If you live in any of the 15 states where Bob’s Discount Furniture operates, you’re probably familiar with the retailer’s “Dare to Compare” ads that pit expensive brand-name furniture against Bob’s more affordable versions. But one major mattress maker claims some of these comparisons are misleading and illegal. [More]
