I have written on several previous occasions about corporate America’s systematic attacks on the class action system. A recent news item from the Associated Press offers a positive reason to revisit this topic. As the news agency writes, the huge insurance company State Farm reached a settlement earlier this month…
A recent article in New York magazine highlights the ever-growing issue of arbitration clauses and the danger they pose to Americans’ basic rights. Citing reporting that originally appeared in The Guardian, the magazine details a shocking, but all-too-common, story: people who have been treated badly, even criminally, only to discover…
I first wrote about the barriers that arbitration clauses place in the way of Oregonians seeking justice nearly three years ago. Today, I am returning to the subject because it is important that readers in Oregon and Washington understand what the Congress has just done, how it effects their rights…
An effort by the Trump administration to roll back an obscure Medicare rule has provoked a loud, and unexpected, backlash according to multiple reports in The Hill, a newspaper that specializes in covering the federal government in general and Congress in particular. The paper reports in June an obscure regulatory…
An important thing to understand about the US Supreme Court is that its rulings can often seem narrow and technical even as they have sweeping repercussions for every American. That was the case with two rulings that were issued late last month, just as the court’s annual term came to…
A groundbreaking three-part series published last week by the New York Times has drawn much-needed attention to a problem threatening almost everyone in America despite the fact that many people are not even aware that it impacts them directly. As the paper reports in part one of the series: “Over…
Oregon took a big step forward today in protecting the rights of consumers and holding bad corporate citizens to account when Governor Kate Brown signed legislation to strengthen consumer rights in class action suits. The new law will also help fund legal aid for our less fortunate neighbors. The bill…
An article that appeared this week in the New York Times detailed the legal struggles of some of the victims of General Motors’ corporate negligence – struggles made worse by misguided laws designed to protect corporate bottom lines at the expense of public health and safety. As I have…
Last month I wrote about the spreading scandal relating to potentially lethal airbags installed in millions of vehicles from nearly a dozen carmakers over more than a decade. The airbags have a defect that can cause the steel cylinders used to inflate them to fragment, sending shrapnel into the bodies…
A recent article in Slate highlighted an important but little noticed executive order signed by President Obama on the last day of July. According to the online magazine, the “Fair Play and Safe Workplaces” order, as it is formally known, “requires companies bidding for federal contracts worth more than $500,000…