The Fourth Circuit’s unpublished decision in Rock Spring Plaza II, LLC v. Investors Warranty of America, LLC is ostensibly a Maryland commercial lease case. But consumer bankruptcy lawyers will recognize a familiar pattern: a financially troubled enterprise attempting to isolate liabilities in a newly created entity, preserve the profitable assets, and leave creditors holding an empty bag.

The Supreme Court's unanimous decision in Keathley v. Buddy Ayers Construction, Inc. may ultimately prove to be one of the most important consumer bankruptcy opinions of the decade—not because it answers every question about judicial estoppel, but because it refuses to allow lower courts to answer those questions with rigid presumptions.

Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/uljo

Available at: How the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” Law Will Raise Taxes for Thousands of Student Loan Borrowers

Available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=6361458

In Sessoms v. USHealth Advisors, LLC, the Fourth Circuit reversed the Eastern District of North Carolina and held that USHealth Advisors, LLC could enforce an arbitration clause contained in a lead-generation website’s Terms of Use against a consumer bringing TCPA claims.

Summary:

Plaintiff Cynthia Sessoms alleged that USHealth violated the TCPA through prerecorded telemarketing calls. USHealth argued that Sessoms had previously agreed to arbitration when she sought insurance quotes through a NextGen/FirstQuoteHealth lead-generation website.

n Peoples v.  Experian , Judge Thomas D. Schroeder of the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina takes up one of those procedural questions that federal litigators have been fighting over for nearly two decades after Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal: whether defendants asserting affirmative defenses must satisfy the same “plausibility” standard imposed on plaintiffs, or whether merely providing “fair notice” remains enough.

Available at:  https://huskiecommons.lib.niu.edu/niulr/vol46/iss2/6/

Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=6615598

Abstract:

The American Bar Association's Commercial Law Education Task Force was formed to bring renewed attention to the importance of commercial law in legal education. There has been a significant decline in commercial law course offerings at U.S. law schools, and we write to law schools to ask them to prioritize and encourage commercial law offerings.

Available: SSRN – “Whose Problem is it, Anyway? Some Thoughts on § 541(b)(7)’s Hanging Paragraph”