NCLC joined Public Counsel, Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, the Debt Collective, Public Law Center, Watsonville Law Center, and East Bay Community Law Center in submitting an amicus brief to the California Court of Appeal in support of the respondents. The case concerns a bail bond company’s violation of the California requirement to notify co-signers—typically friends and families of the arrested person in this context—of their obligations when entering into a consumer credit contract.
The amicus brief, which asks the California Court of Appeal to affirm the trial court’s preliminary injunction, (1) outlines the consumer protection framework that contains the co-signer notice requirement, (2) highlights the importance of that statutory requirement for consumers, particularly in credit bail transactions and particularly for vulnerable communities of color, and (3) demonstrates how the bail bond company’s arguments that the credit bail business should be exempt from consumer protection laws that govern all consumer credit transactions in California would vitiate the law.