A pending New York bill, A.679/S.2407, would amend the state’s chief consumer protection law to raise guaranteed minimum statutory damages forty-fold, to $2,000 per sued-over transaction. Combine that with class action features that would enable multiplicative application to whole classes of repeat transaction, and the result should terrify business [Jonah Knobler, New York Law Journal]
8 Comments
When are people going to learn that trial lawyers are just another special interest group?
Just another special interest group?
More like the ultimate special interest group.
Lawyers have solid control over two of three branches of the Federal government, and usually control the third. Similar situations exist in most state governments.
companies are breaking the rules and profiting. Then they complain they have to pay when caught? Follow the rules, no damages. Simple.
Oh sure, let’s just pretend that it’s never the case that the rules are contradictory and 100% compliance is impossible or that there are no predatory plaintiffs that sue dozens of companies over minor technical violations that cause no actual consumer harm and therefore shouldn’t be violations in the first place.
Follow the rules (which shift, often based on the whims of unreasonable regulators) to perfection each and every time. Not possible.
Tell you what, let’s hold regulators and lawyers to the same standard.
You have that right. I’m an officer at a small social club. We just had a spot check by our Liquor Control Authority. The person doing the check told me that some of my bookkeeping was wrong. I pulled out their manual and showed him that I was following their regulations. I was told that what he said was the law, not the book. I’d be in agreement with Allan if it wasn’t for people like that. The law is designed to be convoluted and subject for interpretation. To some that is a feature, not a bug.
This isn’t the only place where I have run into things like this, but, every time I have I was dealing with a Government employee.
And don’t forget that recent case, where the gov was going after someone for not following the law, even though they were accurately following the instructions of the government bureaucrats who apparently did not understand the law either.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Heads I win, Tails you lose.
The process is the punishment.