On August 5th, 2017, while enjoying the thrills and frills of a Six Flags theme park, Hugo and Sharon Soto used their debit cards to purchase food five separate times during their outing. After processing each payment for their food purchases, Six Flags issued them a receipt that contained all twelve digits of their debit card number. The Sotos sued in state court on behalf of themselves and a putative class arguing that these receipts violated the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), amended by the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), which prohibits the printing of more than the last five digits of a credit or debit card number on an electronically printed receipt. The Sotos argued that their injury consisted of the chance that the receipts that they had thrown away could compromise their payment card information; however, they did not allege that their credit or debit card information had actually been compromised.

Recently, “probate lenders” have started to advance cash to heirs and beneficiaries in return for part of their interest in a pending decedent’s estate. This Essay advances our understanding of this phenomenon by analyzing an original dataset of 1,119 probate matters from San Francisco. Capitalizing on a California statute that requires probate lenders to file their contracts in the court record, the Essay offers insights about the contours of the industry, why people borrow against their inheritances, and the fairness of these transactions. The Essay concludes that probate lending raises serious consumer protection concerns.

Police violence both as the cause of and response to the racial justice protests following George Floyd’s murder called fresh attention to the need for legal remedies to hold police officers accountable. In addition to the well-publicized issue of qualified immunity, the differential regimes for asserting civil rights claims against state and federal agents for constitutional rights violations create a further barrier to relief. Courts have only recognized damages as a remedy for such abuses in limited contexts against federal employees under the Bivens framework. The history of Black protest movements reveals the violent responses police have to such challenges to the white supremacist social order. The use of federal officers in that violent response during the summer of 2020 makes the urgent need for Bivens relief for the victims of police violence clear. Fortunately, the history of the First and Fourth Amendments reveals a basis for extending Bivens relief under both Amendments in the context of the violent policing of Black protest. But will the courts or Congress extend that protection?

In order for something to be built, something has to be destroyed, and this jail’s administration has to be destroyed. We’re too far along as a society to continue to be submerged in the wrongs and the corruptions, instead of to stand for what’s right. . . . I wish people understood that jail isn’t really what they think it is; it’s a façade. This place isn’t meant to help you get better. . . .