New York Paralegal Blog

Ever heard of "checks and balances" in our government? It's the idea that no single part of our government – the President, Congress, or the Courts – gets too powerful. Each one has ways to "check" the others. Recently, the Supreme Court made a big decision about something called "universal injunctions." This might sound like a super technical legal term, but it really affects how our country runs and how much power the President has. So, What's a Universal Injunction? Think of it this way: Imagine the President issues a new rule (called an executive order) that affects people all over the country. Before this Supreme Court decision, if just one federal judge decided that rule was illegal or unconstitutional, they could issue a "universal injunction." This meant that President's rule would be stopped nationwide, for everyone, even if the case only involved a few specific people. It was like a single referee blowing the whi...

By DARRYL GREER GLENDALE, Calif. (CN) - He's seen fire and he's seen rain, but James Taylor claims in court that he hasn't seen nearly $2 million in royalty checks from Warner Bros.

The Federal Trade Commission is mailing 450,177 refund checks worth almost $108 million to homeowners who were allegedly overcharged by Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. As part of the FTC’s efforts to protect financially distressed homeowners, the FTC reached a settlement with Countrywide last year over allegations that the company collected excessive fees from borrowers who were struggling to keep their homes. “It’s astonishing that a single company could be responsible for overcharging more than 450,000 homeowners,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said. “Countrywide’s unconscionable behavior harmed American consumers on a massive scale and we are proud to be getting every single dollar back to hundreds of thousands of struggling consumers who can least afford to lose the money.”

On April 22, 2011, an administrator working for the Federal Trade Commission mailed 3,162 refund checks to borrowers allegedly harmed by Golden Empire Mortgage, Inc. and Howard D. Kootstra. The refund checks stem from a lawsuit the FTC filed against Golden Empire and Kootstra, alleging that they illegally charged Hispanic consumers higher prices for mortgage loans than non-Hispanic white consumers – price disparities that could not be explained by the applicants’ credit characteristics or underwriting risk. A settlement order imposed a $5.5 million judgment that was suspended when the defendants paid $1.5 million for consumer redress. The settlement order bars the defendants from discriminating on the basis of national origin in credit transactions and requires Golden Empire to establish and maintain a policy that restricts loan originators’ pricing discretion, a fair lending monitoring program, a program to ensure the accuracy and completeness of their data, and empl...