Articles

Supreme Court returns zero results in Google case

June 08, 2016 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

The use of statistical sampling to generate common issues for resolution via class action presents serious due process questions. Someday, the Supreme Court will need to resolve those questions because constitutional protection of due process cannot be reconciled with statistical sampling that allows plaintiffs to forego any demonstration of indivi ...

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You can't sue businesses just because you don't like something they do

June 03, 2015 | By ANASTASIA BODEN

Yesterday PLF filed this letter brief asking the California Supreme Court to review an Unfair Competition Law (UCL) case that threatens important civil justice reforms enacted by California voters. The UCL forbids any “unfair,” “misleading,” or “unlawful,” business practice.  Once enacted, that broad and ill-def ...

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California's ever-expanding Unfair Competition Law

August 06, 2013 | By ANASTASIA BODEN

In two decisions issued last week, the California Supreme Court permitted private plaintiffs to sue under the Unfair Competition Law (UCL) based on the defendants’ violations of separate statutes—even where those statutes themselves forbid private rights of action for such violations. In the first case, Zhang v. California Capital Insuranc ...

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PLF's Timothy Sandefur on A&G to talk about California's unfair Unfair Competition Law

May 30, 2013 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

I’ll be joining Armstrong & Getty in about five minutes to talk about California’s absurd Unfair Competition Law–and why you can get sued for faking a movie review. You can listen online here. I mentioned Justice Brown’s opinion in the San Remo Hotel case. You can read that here–just scroll down to her dissenting ...

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Supreme Court fails to rein in class action abuse

April 23, 2012 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

California’s hostile business climate is exemplified by the state’s Unfair Competition Law (UCL), which invites plaintiffs with trivial and even nonexistent injuries to bombard companies with “consumer protection” lawsuits.  Because these lawsuits benefit the trial bar far more than consumers, California voters enacted Prop ...

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Frivolous lawsuit against McDonald’s dismissed

April 06, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

A judge in San Francisco yesterday threw out a liberal private interest group’s frivolous lawsuit against McDonald’s that was filed back in December of 2010 on the grounds that McDonald’s Happy Meals is a “predatory practice” that “lures” children to beg for unhealthy food, thereby causing child obesity. Be ...