| Volume 129 Number 14 |
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The People’s Lawyer’s Tip of the Day
What do you do when you receive merchandise that you didn’t order? Federal laws prohibit mailing unordered merchandise to consumers and then demanding payment. Click here for more.
Patagonia to donate all of its Black Friday Sales
Just before Thanksgiving, outdoor clothing retailer Patagonia stated it would donate 100% of its sales from Black Friday. The company expected to make about $2 million in sales at both its 80 global stores and Patagonia.com, but blew past its own estimate. The $10 million will go to grassroots environmental groups fighting to protect vital natural resources like water, air and soil. Click here for more.
Your Money
Are you thinking of investing in a business opportunity? Before you sign the contact or send money for an entrepreneurial venture, find out about the Business Opportunity Rule, enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, the nation's consumer protection agency. The Rule protects you and makes sure you have the necessary information to determine whether a business opportunity is worth it. First, it requires sellers covered by the Rule to give you a one-page disclosure document outlining important facts about the opportunity. Second, if sellers make any claims about how much money you might make, they have to give you a separate paper with more specifics. Third, the Rule makes clear that certain practices are against the law. Click here for more.
For the Lawyers
A conjunctive DTPA award is not preclusive in bankruptcy court as to any independent basis for the award standing alone. A U.S. District Court in Texas reversed a bankruptcy court’s summary judgment that a state court judgment was preclusive and the debt was nondischargeable. The court noted, “When a state-court judgment does not contain sufficiently detailed findings to meet the federal nondischargeability test, the court should look beyond the judgment and examine the jury instructions and evidence produced in the state-court proceedings that support the judgment. Disjunctive jury instructions in state-court judgments make it difficult for a bankruptcy court to give preclusive effect to that judgment in deciding whether the judgment debt is nondischargable. In re Dang (S.D. Tex. 2016). Click here for more.