Category Archives: Consumer Law
Becher and Zarsky, ‘Big Mistake(s)’
INTRODUCTION … This Article makes three key contributions. First, it proposes a novel framework for the doctrine of mistake, tailored to the distinctive challenges of digital contracting. Second, it assesses how a revised mistake doctrine could enhance consumer access to justice even in view of arbitration clauses and other contractual limitations. Third, it introduces and […]
Kenneth Jacobsen, ‘Navigating [The] Amazon: Liability of E-Commerce Companies for Defective Products Sold Through Their Internet Websites’
ABSTRACT There has been an explosion in e-commerce consumer sales transactions over the past few years – a trend that increased significantly during the pandemic. But what happens when one of those products is defective and causes injuries to the purchaser? The vendors of products sold through these internet transactions are often foreign entities beyond […]
‘Microsoft Contract Day 2025!’
Two years ago today, I authored a post titled ‘Microsoft’s Dispute Resolution Provisions Are a Mess’. I argued that the ‘Jurisdiction and Governing Law’ language in the form purchase order used by Microsoft and its subsidiaries in 109 countries around the world was ‘incoherent’. My goal in writing the post was to inspire/shame Microsoft – […]
Satz and Vertinsky, ‘Customary Corruption’
ABSTRACT For over a hundred years, it has been well-accepted among tort scholars that physicians – as one of the legally recognized professions – determine their own customary practices. Within tort law, and medical malpractice more specifically, customary practice establishes whether physicians breach or uphold the required standard of care toward their patients. The results […]
Jim Moye, ‘Smart Contracts Are Neither Smart Nor A Contract: The Case Against Smart Contract Utilization in Everyday Consumer or Commercial Transactions’
ABSTRACT No doubt, most of us have gone into a local electronics store or ordered a new gadget from an online provider. After purchasing the gadget, we are eager to start operating the new purchase. Before fully utilizing the gadget, however, there are a series of screens requiring the user to read, acknowledge, and consent […]
Anika Singh Lemar, ‘Slum Managers’
ABSTRACT All sorts of landlords – governmental landlords, cooperatives, large-scale corporate landlords, and mom-and-pops – engage in slumlording to some degree. Despite that fact, some of the most popular proposed solutions to the problem focus on a property owner’s size and corporate form, rather than its property management practices. This Essay contends that management, not […]
Orly Lobel, ‘Do We Need to Know What Is Artificial? Unpacking Disclosure and Generating Trust in an Era of Algorithmic Action’
ABSTRACT Should users have the right to know when they are chatting with a bot? Should companies providing generative AI applications be obliged to mark the generated products as AI-generated or alert users of generative chats that the responder is ‘merely an LLM (or a Large Language Model)’? Should citizens or consumers – patients, job […]
Anna Lund, ‘Security of Tenure in Foreclosure Proceedings: The Judicial Role when Borrowers are Absent or Self-Represented’
The right to adequate housing requires that individuals not be evicted from their homes without being provided appropriate legal or other protections. In Canada, the federal government has promoted housing through mortgage-financed homeownership. Individuals risk losing their homes if they default on their mortgage. When an individual can no longer afford their mortgage payments, the […]
Timothy Lytton, ‘Using Nuisance Law to Advance Food Safety’
ABSTRACT This Essay proposes a novel approach to the most urgent food safety problem currently facing US consumers: fresh produce contaminated with virulent microbial pathogens. Despite extensive regulation, growers have been unable to rid their fields of toxic bacteria, and processors have been unsuccessful in sanitizing tainted produce before it reaches store shelves. As a […]
Mateusz Grochowski, ‘Towards a Renaissance of Price Control in Contract Law? Preliminary Observations on COVID-19 and Price Regulation on the Consumer Market’
ABSTRACT This paper addresses the dilemma of retail price regulation on the consumer market in the economic realities triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. It discusses the reinvigoration of discussion over price control that ensued in numerous countries as a result of the rapid increase of prices of certain goods (such as medical products and everyday-use […]