The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) filed a suit on Thursday against 26 defendants involved in a student loan repayment scam affecting more than 8.5 million consumers. The suit is against Monster Loans and a “sham entity” known as Lend Tech that unlawfully obtained consumer reports from the consumer-reporting agency Experian (not included in the [...]
The US Department of Labor promulgated a rule on Sunday that is likely to limit large franchise brands from employee overtime and wage suits. The rule is 29 CFR Part 791, which defines Joint Employer Status under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The rule shifts the definition of “employer” for joint employment status from “multiple [...]
Wireless speaker maker Sonos sued tech giant Google on Tuesday claiming that Google’s recent audio products, including Chromecast Audio, Google Home products and Pixel devices, infringe on Sonos’s patents. The suit states that Sonos and Google worked in collaboration to integrate Sonos’s wireless multi-room audio system with Google Play Music, but “just two years later [...]
Arizona voters’ rights groups and the Arizona Secretary of State reached a settlement agreement on Monday that will link voter registration systems to the Department of Transportation systems. Katie Hobbs, who assumed office as Secretary of State on Wednesday, settled the dispute between her office and several voting rights groups including The League of Women [...]
The Trump administration filed an amicus brief of Friday asking the Supreme Court to uphold a Louisiana law that requires abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. The law, Louisiana Act 620, would leave only one abortion clinic in the state. Opponents of the law argue that the law significantly restricts pregnant women’s [...]
Twenty states and the District of Columbia as well as Democratic members of the US House of Representatives filed two petitions Friday urging the Supreme Court to uphold the Affordable Care Act. The petitions are in response to a Fifth Circuit decision in December that upheld an action by Congress to take the alternative tax [...]
More than 200 Republican members of Congress and two Democrats filed an amicus curiae brief on Thursday urging the Supreme Court to overturn its decision in the landmark abortion cases Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The brief argues that the history of the abortion case decisions including Roe, Casey and Hellerstedt, create [...]
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker on Tuesday granted 11,017 pardons for individuals convicted of misdemeanor cannabis offenses involving less than 30 grams. The expungements involved Illinoisans in 92 counties. The landmark bipartisan Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act, signed by the governor in June, provided paths to relief for more the 700,000 cannabis-related arrest and conviction records. While [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of California court on Tuesday denied a motion by brand-name drug companies to halt the implementation of a California bill that would stop “reverse payments” to generic drug companies. The bill in question is Assembly Bill 824 (AB 824), which seeks to stop “reverse [...]
A Denver County Court judge ruled on Friday that Denver’s ordinance banning urban camping violates the Eighth Amendment. In his opinion, Judge Johnny C. Barajas wrote that the ordinance specifically violates the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, which “imposes substantive limits on what can be made criminal and punished as such.” The court cited a [...]
