Category: Consumer Contracts

  • The Implication of Reasonable Consumers Not Reading Contracts of Adhesion

    Posted by

    Adam Levitin

    A final installment to this evening's blog storm (you can tell that I'm procrastinating on exam grading…).

    The Consumer Financial Protection Act prohibits "unfair" acts and practices.  "Unfair" is defined as an act or practice that causes or is likely to cause substantial injury to consumers, that is not reasonably avoidable by consumers, and the harm of which is not outweighed by benefits to consumers or competition.  

    Now consider that the reasonable consumer does not read prolix contracts in detail.  The reasonable consumer might look at a top-level disclosure, say the Schumer Box for a credit card, or maybe the TRID for a mortgage, but I don't think it's controversial to say that the reasonable consumer isn't going to get into the fine print that follows.  The reasonable consumer isn't going to bother doing this because (1) the consumer might not understand the fine print, (2) the consumer can't negotiate the fine print, and (3) the consumer knows there's a good chance that all of the competitors have similar or worse fine print, so a search for better fine-print terms is might be futile (and might come at the expense of worse top-line terms).  Only a fanatic or a masochist reads every line of a cardholder agreement.

    If I'm right that a reasonable consumer doesn't bother reading the details in contracts of adhesion, then notice what the "unfairness" prohibition is doing:  it is requiring that the terms of the contract be substantively fair.  Any hidden tricks or traps, like the double cycle grace period language I highlighted in my previous post, are going to be unfair.  Add in the prong of "abusive" that deals with taking unreasonable advantage of consumers' lack of understanding, and I think the Consumer Financial Protection Act is effectively requiring that consumer finance contracts must be "conscionable" or else have all of the tricks and traps made very clear to the consumer.

    That's actually pretty remarkable. That's a light year beyond prohibiting "unconscionable" contracts.  It's an really affirmative fairness requirement for contract terms. It's also exactly what it should be.  Contracts should be a mechanism for mutual (subjective) welfare enhancement, not for one party to hoodwink the other. I wonder how many compliance lawyers are looking at consumer finance contracts in light of the fact that a reasonable consumer doesn't read fine print.  They should be.  

    A final thought:  where does this leave arbitration agreements?  Arguably they fall into the problem unfair and abusive category (although there may be some argument about consumer benefit).  Yes, the CFPB's arbitration rulemaking was overturned by the Congressional Review Act.  But the rulemaking was undertaken under a specific power.  Query whether that prevents a rulemaking that is substantially the same under the UDAAP power.  No one really knows.  

  • Student loans – the debt collector contracts

    Posted by

    Alan White

    Twelve senators have just written EWKHto Education Secretary Betsy DeVos questioning why the Education Department continues to award lucrative contracts to debt collection firms, and criticizing the seriously misaligned incentives embedded in those contracts.

    While most federal student loan borrowers deal with loan servicing companies like PHEAA, Navient and Nelnet, defaulting borrowers in an unlucky but sizeable minority (roughly 6.5 million) have their loans assigned to debt collectors like Collecto, Inc., Pioneer Credit Recovery, and Immediate Credit Recovery Inc. Borrowers assigned to collection firms immediately face collection fees of 25% added on to their outstanding debt. The collection firms harvest hundreds of millions of dollars in fees, mostly from federal wage garnishments, tax refund intercepts, and new consolidation loans borrowers take out to pay off old defaulted loans. Wage garnishments and tax refund intercepts are simply involuntary forms of income-based repayment, programs that could be administered by servicers without adding massive collection fees to student debt. Similarly, guiding defaulted borrowers to consolidation loans, and putting them into income-driven repayment plans, are services that servicing contractors can and do provide, at much lower cost. In short, the debt collector contracts are bad deals for student loan borrowers and bad deals for taxpayers.

     According to a Washington Post story, one of the collection firms to be awarded a contract this year had financial ties to Secretary DeVos, although she has since divested those ties. In other news, the current administration apparently reinstated two collection firms fired under the prior administration for misinforming borrowers about their rights. More in-depth analysis of the collection agency contract issue by Center for American Progress here.

  • Taking Online Dispute Resolution To The Next Level

    Posted by

    Pamela Foohey

    New HandshakeYesterday I purchased a travel alarm clock through Amazon. This morning, the manufacturer emailed me with instructions for its use, including a very important point about switching the travel lock button off to activate the clock. The clock apparently arrives in the locked condition, which has caused some customers confusion and led them to think that the clock was defective when it was not. The email made me think of a recently published book, The New Handshake: Online Dispute Resolution and the Future of Consumer Protection, by Professor (and former Slips guest blogger) Amy Schmitz and Colin Rule, who is the former Director of Online Dispute Resolution for eBay and PayPal.

    The New Handshake surveys that current landscape of online dispute resolution and sets out a blueprint for how the Internet can help consumers worldwide deal with disputes arising from their e-commerce transactions. With more and more consumer transactions moving online (ten years ago, I likely would have purchased that travel alarm clock at the-somehow-still-semi-alive Radio Shack), the book's detailed ideas for how to design an effective dispute resolution system is increasingly important for businesses and for consumer advocates. As Schmitz and Rule note, largely gone are the days when transactions were sealed in person with a firm handshake, and class actions seem less and less effective overall — which leaves both challenges and space to innovate for business and consumers. For my own interests, two parts of the books stood out.

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  • New Report on Car Insurance Redlining

    Posted by

    Pamela Foohey

    Empirical studies have shown that minorities pay more for goods and services, and that they pay more to finance their purchases of those goods and services — for instance, through subprime home and auto loans. Machine Bias, a new study from ProPublica and Consumer Reports, adds car insurance premiums to the list of what minorities can expect to pay more for. The study uses zip codes to analyze auto insurance premiums and payouts in four states, California, Illinois, Texas, and Missouri. It finds that major insurers charge up to 30% more in minority neighborhoods as compared to white neighborhoods with the same risk profile. The results mean that where someone lives matters even more, and could have devastating consequences on upward mobility. When faced with budget-busting car insurance bills, do people give up the cars they need to get to work? Or do they go out without necessities, such as food and medicine, so they can pay their car insurance premiums?

  • John Oliver and Consumer Law YouTube Videos

    Posted by

    Dalie Jimenez

    I’m trying something new this year. My consumer bankruptcy policy seminar students will read many great articles by many wonderful academics on this blog, as well as others, but this year, their “reading” will also include a great deal of YouTube.

    90% of the videos are John Oliver segments from his excellent show on HBO, Last Week Tonight. They cover particular “products” (student loans, credit reports, debt buying, payday loans, auto loans, retirement plans and financial advisors) and middle class issues (minimum wage, wage gap, wealth gap, paid family leave).

    I thought Credit Slips readers might enjoy seeing them all in one place. Here they are in no particular order. Let me know if I’ve missed any!

  • Uber Helps Me Revise My Contracts Syllabus

    Posted by

    Mark Weidemaier

    I've been meaning to post about this recent decision, by Judge Rakoff in the Southern District of New York, denying motions by Uber and its CEO Travis Kalanick to compel arbitration of a class action lawsuit. More coverage here (Bloomberg) and here (Law360). The lawsuit alleges that Uber suppresses price competition among drivers in violation of the antitrust laws. The court's opinion covers some arcane issues of arbitration law, such as the defendants' argument that the plaintiff had to arbitrate the question whether an arbitration agreement existed. (Answer: No.*) But mostly, the opinion is about contract law–or rather, about how not to design a system for forming contracts on-line.

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  • Porter’s Modern Consumer Law

    Posted by

    Bob Lawless

    Porter Consumer LawCredit Slips blogger Katie Porter has produced a new textbook in consumer law that anyone teaching the subject should consider adopting. Indeed, law professors not teaching consumer law should to take a look at it and consider whether they should add the class to their teaching portfolio. A 2013 poll on Brian Leiter's Law School Reports named consumer law as the number one "area of law which deserves more attention in the legal academy." Next academic year I will be picking up a new course, and the emergence of Porter's new text made the decision easy for me as to which course it will be.

    In the preface, Porter makes explicit her three-pronged approach to the topic of consumer law:

    1. The book situates consumer law within the business-law curriculum. "Consumer law is big business," she notes. Understanding the legal issues requires understanding the "deal," the information flow, and the market in which the transaction occurs. Porter expressly recognizes, "the world of consumer practice offers opportunities for lawyers to represent consumers (as government lawyers, policy advocates, and plaintiffs’ attorneys) and to represent businesses (as in-house counsel, defense attorneys, and
      lobbyists)."
    2. The book provides a strong theoretical frame by situating consumer law at the intersection of tort and contract. The book does not present consumer law as a hodgepodge of cases and statutes loosely organized around the term "consumer." Rather it recognizes that a lot of what travels under the law of "consumer law" responds to the gaps that traditional contract and torts doctrines have when it comes to the issues that consumer transactions create.
    3. The book explores where the social-science literature has learning for consumer law. Porter looks to see what psychology, sociology, marketing, and economics can add to our understanding of the legal issues. By doing so, the book explores the difference between law on the ground and law in the books. 

    The book uses a problem-based method of instruction that will be familiar to users of Porter's co-authored bankruptcy textbook or my co-authored secured transactions textbook. The problems range from straight-forward statute readers to teach doctrine to tough client counseling problems that focus on real-world lawyering skills.

    More information, including a table of contents and a sample chapter, can be found at Aspen Publishers.

  • Learn about Teaching Consumer Law in Beautiful Santa Fe May 20-21, 2016

    Posted by

    Nathalie Martin

    Pueblo acrhitecure ins anta feOn May 20-21st, the Center for Consumer Law at the University of Houston Law Center will present “TEACHING CONSUMER LAW IN OUR POPULAR CULTURE AND SOCIAL MEDIA.” Sponsored by the University of New Mexico School of Law, this is the only Conference in the world dedicated to the teaching of consumer law.

    Snow in santa fe

    This year’s Conference features 25 speakers, including the respected U.S. consumer law scholars, as well as presenters from nine other countries. Topics include discussions of new and innovative teaching techniques, substantive consumer law updates, a detailed discussion of the CFPB, empirical studies on consumer law issues, and numerous presentations of consumer law in other countries, such as Iraq, Japan, Nigeria, the EU, Nigeria, Denmark, and China.
     
    The Conference will be held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, one of the most unique cities in American. A Conference brochure and registration form will be available shortly. In the meantime, please save the date. To view the tentative schedule and register , click here.
     
    Richard Alderman and I look forward to seeing you in Santa Fe.

     

     

     

     

     

  • That OTHER Consumer Agency: Why the FTC remains important

    Posted by

    Katie Porter

    Hoofnagle bookSince the launch of the CFPB, we haven't blogged as frequently at Credit Slips about the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). It remains hard at work, and in fact, I think has used some of the shift of some of its responsibilities to the CFPB to focus on a number of cutting edge issues. For example, their conferences and reports on big data analytics are top notch.

    Chris Hoofnagle, UC Berkeley, has written an excellent book about the FTC and its approach to privacy. In part, it is an institutional history, using the FTC Act's passage and the advertising cases of the 1960s and 1970s to understand how and why the FTC is approaching privacy concerns today. The digital economy, the socialization and personalization of consumer finance, and alternative scoring algorithms all present new questions for privacy law. His thoughts on how the FTC developed in reaction to troubling applications of the common law are particularly useful in thinking about how courts might interpret new issues created by CFPB regulations. Business practitioners, consumer advocates, and academics will all benefit from Hoofnagle's analysis.

    FTC Privacy Law and Policy also contains a look at the FTC's role in policing credit reporting agencies and the credit reporting regulations. Hoofnagle is even-handed, pointing to both successes and weaknesses on that front.

    This is definitely worth a read, and I'm happy that it's available in paperback at an affordable price. I think the book also would make a great foundational text in a seminar on consumer law.

  • Fabulous New Paper: Random Justice in Bankruptcy Trial Courts

    Posted by

    Jason Kilborn

    JusticedieI just read a terrific new paper by Gary Neustadter of Santa Clara University Law School, called "Randomly Distributed Trial Court Justice: A Case Study and Siren from the Consumer Bankruptcy World." It presents a monumental empirical study of a debt buyer's litigation campaign to pursue essentially identical contract and fraud claims against hundreds of secondary mortgagors in state courts, federal District Courts, and federal Bankruptcy Courts. The paths and outcomes of these materially identical cases are so different in so many surprising (and often disturbing) ways, the paper offers a really stunning look behind the curtain of our often arbitrary trial-level justice system. And Neustadter's telling of the story is gripping–I read the paper and most of its footnotes from beginning to end in one sitting, unable to put it down. The revelations in this paper are a gold mine for civil proceduralists generally and bankruptcy practitioners in particular. It offers a cautionary tale and useful playbook for lawyers (and perhaps judges) in how to make many aspects of our system more effective. Get it while it's hot!

    Justice die image courtesy of Shutterstock