Consumer Law

States Seek Unclaimed Property for Themselves, Owners Sue

Once upon a time, legislatures throughout the country enacted unclaimed property laws intended to make sure that banks and other companies holding assets that the owners seemed to have forgotten about made efforts to notify them. But today a growing number of states are making it more difficult for owners…

Feb 4, 2008 11:22 PM CST

Weed Like Some Compensation

Couple Claims Cops Harshed Their Mellow by Confiscating Pot Plants, Returning Them Deceased

Feb 1, 2008 3:20 PM CST

Judge Bars Company From Selling Personal Phone Records

A federal judge in Wyoming has ordered a company called AccuSearch Inc. to stop using pretexting to obtain and sell personal information from consumer phone records U.S. District Judge William Downes also ordered the company to give back $200,000 in profits from the sales through its website, Abika.com, IDG News…

Jan 29, 2008 1:50 PM CST

Negative Vytorin Study Prompts Lawsuits

Reports that Vytorin is no more effective than generic drugs in battling cholesterol have already generated lawsuits. The suits claim drug makers Merck & Co. Inc. and Schering-Plough Corp. delayed release of the negative study while touting the drug’s benefits, the National Law Journal reports. Lawyer Steve Berman of Seattle…

Jan 28, 2008 12:28 PM CST

Debtor Sues Opposing Law Firm for Filing in Wrong Court

By filing suit in the wrong location, a Chicago law firm violated the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, a downstate Illinois man contends. Friedman and Wexler filed suit in Cook County, where the law firm is located, rather than Madison County, where plaintiff Robert Harris and the company to…

Jan 25, 2008 8:15 PM CST

Suit Claims Dannon Overstates Yogurt Health Benefits

A proposed class action lawsuit contends that Dannon overstates the health value of its Activia and DanActive yogurts. The suit filed in Los Angeles federal court says Dannon’s own studies contradict its ad claims that the yogurts’ probiotics have been clinically proven to regulate digestion and improve the immune system,…

Jan 25, 2008 3:26 PM CST

Mass Tort Settlements Strain Lawyer’s Duty of Loyalty

As recent controversy over a proposed $4.85 billion settlement of Vioxx painkiller litigation shows, traditional rules of legal ethics do not fully accord with the way mass tort cases are handled in the modern world. Faced with a choice between encouraging enough clients to join in the settlement—which requires 85…

Jan 23, 2008 11:30 PM CST

Mortgage Lenders Cut Deals With Delinquent Debtors

Once upon a time, when borrowers couldn’t pay their mortgages, the banks who loaned money to them foreclosed. But today, faced with record-breaking foreclosure rates and a housing market in which a boarded-up bank-owned property can be very difficult to sell, even at a significant loss, lenders are rethinking the…

Jan 22, 2008 4:34 PM CST

Thousands of Fla. Tobacco Suits Filed as Deadline Looms

When the Florida Supreme Court in 2006 invalidated a $145 million punitive damages award in a class action case against the tobacco industry, it gave the plaintiffs a year to file individual claims, starting on Jan. 11, 2007. At the same time, the court also made it easier for the…

Jan 10, 2008 6:35 PM CST

Cyber Crime Does, Increasingly, Pay

Cyber crime has become more sophisticated, more stealthy, and more successful than ever before, as ill-intentioned Internet “malware” experts refine their methods to take advantage of the popularity of new technology and applications. In addition to sneaking their malicious software onto trusted high-traffic sites such as MySpace.com and YouTube.com, cyber…

Dec 21, 2007 2:39 AM CST

Due to Copyright Law Generation Gap, Future Protection is Murky

Once upon a time, as far as relative old-timers at least in their 40s and 50s are concerned, many Americans felt that certain obvious copyright violations were not only illegal but wrong. A subsequent sea change in technology, though, has not only made the moral issue of copying much murkier,…

Dec 20, 2007 11:28 PM CST

Warm and Well-Advised: Homeless Get Blanket Legal Counsel

Many homeless individuals in Vancouver, Canada, could use a warm, waterproof blanket. And they could also use some legal advice about basic rights. With the help of donors, a non-profit law firm is wrapping up both in a single gift–a free, high-tech waterproof blanket printed with legal information likely to…

Dec 19, 2007 12:22 AM CST

Suits Claim ‘Organic’ Milk Not the Real Thing

Recent class-action lawsuits take issue with the “organic” label on milk sold by several retailers. The suits claim the milk, produced by Aurora Organic Dairy of Boulder, Colo., wasn’t really organic, the Associated Press reports. The company recently agreed to change its practices after an investigation by the U.S. Department…

Dec 13, 2007 6:44 PM CST

Lawyers Probed in ‘Pretext’ ID Theft

Updated: Lawyers throughout the country reportedly may be investigated as part of a Washington state-based probe of an alleged scheme in which a local firm, BNT Investigations, was hired by private detectives all over the U.S. to obtain confidential personal information by pretext. A federal grand jury in Seattle has…

Dec 7, 2007 12:06 AM CST

Mortgage Mess Gets Messier

Despite cleanup efforts, the mortgage mess continues. The Bush administration announced today a plan to freeze the interest rate on some subprime mortgages for five years, which could help more than a million homeowners. As an article on the CNN Money.com website details, the plan would grant those current on…

Dec 6, 2007 8:24 PM CST