| Volume 124 Number 6 |
Subscribe to the Newsletter
Forward this news alert to your family and friends
Helpful Links
Texas Consumer Complaint Center
Credit Reports and Identity Theft
Your Guide to Small Claims Court
Contact Us
1-713-743-2168
The People’s Lawyer’s Tip of the Day
Law-away is back, and more and more businesses are advertising for your business. But before you sign-up with any business, read the contract. Texas has no law regulating how much you get back if you don’t complete your payments or what fees may be charged. How much it will cost you to sue depends on the contract you sign. Click here for more.
FDA Too Slow to Issue Food Recalls, Report Finds
A government report by the Office of Inspector General found that the Food and Drug Administration often waits too long to respond to food recalls, letting companies take their time in recalling contaminated food and leaving the public uninformed and in danger. FDA did not have policies and procedures to ensure that firms or responsible parties initiated voluntary food recalls promptly. As a result, consumers remained at risk of illness or death for several weeks after FDA was aware of a potentially hazardous food in the supply chain. The OIG examined 30 food recalls between 2012 and 2015. In all 30 voluntary recalls after FDA first became aware that an adulterated or misbranded product could be in the food supply chain, it did not prescribe a timeline for each firm to initiate a recall. Click here for more.
Your Money
Have you ever looked at the statement Social Security sends you and wondered if you can really trust the numbers? These projections are based on assumptions as to how long you’ll work and how much you’ll earn so there’s a margin of error. But did you know that there are other ways your Social Security projection may not be completely accurate? The number you see on your Social Security statement isn’t exactly what you’re projected to collect. Instead, it’s reported in “today’s dollars,” meaning it’s what you’d collect if you were that age today. The actual amount will be in “future dollars” that are increased to take into account inflation. For example a projected estimate of $8,642 a month at age 67 in future dollars seems like a lot. However, it will only be worth $2,829 a month in today’s dollars. That’s a big difference! Click here for more.
For the Lawyers
Freestanding class action waiver enforceable. The Eastern District of Pennsylvania held that a freestanding class action waiver—that is, a waiver that was “independent and outside of an arbitration agreement”—was enforceable and that it rendered the plaintiffs inadequate class representatives. Each of the named plaintiffs’ agreements included a clause stating that the plaintiff “waives any right to assert any claims against [the defendant] as a representative or member in any class or representative action.” The court held that this language precluded the plaintiffs from serving as adequate class representatives. In so doing, the court rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that a class action waiver is substantively unconscionable when executed outside the context of an arbitration clause. Korea Week Inc. v. Got Capital, LLC. Click here for more.