Briefs and Comments

Berkeley, CA — The Center’s Open Door Project has helped secure a fifth major appellate victory in a row in the fight to preserve California consumers’ access to the courts. In Askins v. CRST Expedited, Inc., the First District Court of Appeal reaffirmed that consumers do not need to show personal harm beyond a company’s violation of the law itself in order to sue in California state court. Crucially, the Court...

Consumer Protection Win in Oregon! Oregon consumer advocates defeated an industry bill, HB 4141, that aimed to gut Oregon's strong consumer protections against predatory debt settlement products. Center Policy Director Shelmun Dashan offered testimony in opposition to the bill, observing that the measure would have removed provisions that safeguard consumers from the worst practices of the industry.

February 9, 2026 | Washington, D.C. — Today, a coalition of dozens veterans and national, state, and local nonprofit groups submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in NTEU v. Vought, a case challenging efforts by Acting Director Russell Vought and the Trump Administration to shutter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The full D.C. Circuit is poised to hear the case later...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In testimony before the D.C. Council’s Committee on Public Works and Operations today, two distinguished consumer policy professionals called on lawmakers to pass critical reforms to the District’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act (CPPA).

Samuel Levine, Senior Fellow at UC Berkeley Law’s Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice and former Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, emphasized the urgent need to modernize D.C.’s consumer...