Dear House Judiciary Committee: In Questioning William Barr, Employ the Ethics Complaint That 27 Distinguished DC Lawyers Filed Wednesday

FREDERICK BARON, DENNIS AFTERGUT, AUSTIN SARAT

Frederick Baron, former associate deputy attorney general and director of the Executive Office for National Security in the Department of Justice, Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor, and Austin Sarat, Associate Provost and Associate Dean of the Faculty and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Science at Amherst College, call upon the House Judiciary Committee to carefully read the ethics complaint by 27 distinguished DC lawyers against William Barr before questioning him today, July 28, 2020.

Read More

Landry v. Transworld Systems Inc.

Docket: SJC-12813

Opinion Date: July 28, 2020

Judge: Barbara A. Lenk

Areas of Law: Arbitration & Mediation, Consumer Law

The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the judgment of the superior court denying Defendant's motion to compel arbitration of Plaintiff's claims that Defendant had engaged in improper debt collection practices and debt collection regulations, holding that there was no error in the denial of Defendant's motion to compel arbitration. Plaintiff allegedly owed debt to Enterprise Rent-A-Car Company of Boston, LLC for damage to a rental vehicle. Enterprise assigned the debt to Defendant for collection. Plaintiff filed a class action complaint against Defendant, alleging that Defendant made too frequent phone contact with him and other debtors. Defendant sought to compel arbitration of Plaintiff's claims pursuant to the rental contract between Plaintiff and Enterprise. The superior court denied the motion to compel. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that reasonable minds could differ as to whether the arbitration provision in the contract was applicable to claims brought against Defendant, and therefore, Defendant did not put forth the clear and definite evidence of intent that it must to be entitled to enforce the arbitration provision as a third-party beneficiary.