Misleading and deceptive advertising in consumer society

Some misleading advertisements I’ve received in the mail have been offers to have met debt consolidated, with letters saying I am pre-approved for a large personal loan at a very low interest rate. It always looks too good to be true and after a quick inspection online, I find that others have received the same junk mail and down at the very bottom on the letter in fine print are words telling you that you are not really pre-approved and that the letter is just an offer from a third-party business that will shop your debt around to actual lenders to see if any of them are interested in giving you a loan. Unless you know what you are looking for, you’re not likely to even notice this fine print and so the junk mail is actually very misleading in the sense that it makes you think you are already pre-approved for a debt consolidation at a low rate when the truth is you are not.
My opinion on the Court of Appeals decision in Citaramanis v. Hallowell is that Hallowell is correct in seeking to have damages overturned because the lack of a license did not in any well harm the Citaramnis, who were quite happy with the rental property. The license had more to do with state regulatory matters than it did with false advertising and Hallowell was not falsely advertising a licensed property in order to secure tenants but was rather advertising a property for rent and failing to have the property licensed. In other words there was no intention to mislead the public but rather a failure to comply with state legislation. This should not have an impact on the contract between landlord and tenant and the tenant should not be reimbursed just because the rental property was unlicensed all the while the tenant was paying rent. As the judge states, “a landlords failure to inform a tenant that the leased property is unlicensed does not, in itself, demonstrate that the tenant has suffered a diminution in the rental value of the property” (Hallowell v. Citaramanis, 1991). In this case, I agree with the majority because the Citarmanasis made no showing of actual damages as the judge indicated and there was really no reason to address it.
As for Mr. Park in US v. Park, while pest control can be difficult, Park should have done a more convincing job in showing that he had really done everything he could have done to fix the problems with his company’s warehouses and the issue of rodents having free reign of the place. As the CEO of the firm, he should be held liable for what the firm does, especially after being warned by the FDA that he and his firm are not in compliance with safety precautions and guidelines put forward by the FDA. Those rules are put out there to protect the public because the public will be consuming the food items being warehoused by Mr. Park’s company—and there is a rodent problem there. So the FDA comes in to protect the public and tell Mr. Park to fix the problem. If the problem is truly unfixable then the FDA is wrong to prosecute Mr. Park—but though pest control can be difficult it is not impossible and Mr. Park should have been able to do more to address the issue. The fact that the FDA came back two years later and found the warehouses in essentially the same state shows that Mr. Park did not take the matter seriously. The FDA is not an irrational body that goes out of its way to prosecute poor CEOs. The purpose of the FDA is to protect the public and Mr. Park was clearly not interested in doing that (United States v. Park).
As a society we should draw the line for the responsibility of corporate executives at things which are beyond their control—but the reality is that a CEO is in that position because he or she is taking responsibility for the company and must be able to show that the company desires to be in compliance with all laws in order to protect the public. Too often CEOs seem to be beyond the law, especially in financial regulation, and that sends the wrong message to the public. So if a company is not in compliance but should be, and the CEO is told that the company is not in compliance and must bring the company into compliance, and is given a time frame to do so and is even given recommendations on what to do and the CEO does not follow those recommendations, then that CEO should be prosecuted. It is no different from a parent being neglectful towards a child. At some point the state will step in and take the child away. A CEO who is not being a good steward will and should lose his duty as head of a company unless he can show that he is indeed making an effort to bring the company into compliance. Even if the effort fails, at least he can say that he made every reasonable effort to address the problem. If a CEO is truly making an effort and experts can agree that a reasonable effort is being made then that CEO should not be prosecuted.
Ultimately it is up to an impartial judge to determine the extent to which a CEO should be held liable for non-compliance issues—but if a CEO is deliberately avoiding taking measures to be compliant because of cost or a lack of desire to conform to the rule of law, that CEO is asking to be prosecuted. Cases like Enron where the CEOs Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling knew something bad was happening within the company but chose to ignore the situation because of being happy with the profits are examples of why CEOs need to be held accountable. They are the heads of the household, so to speak, and they should have to answer when crimes are committed and the public’s safety or security is threatened by the company’s reckless behavior and the CEO’s inability to address the recklessness.
References
Hallowell v. Citaramanis. (1991). Justia. Retrieved from
https://law.justia.com/cases/maryland/court-of-special-appeals/1991/1060-september-term-1990-0.html
United States v. Park. (2010). CaseBriefs. Retrieved from
https://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/criminal-law/criminal-law-keyed-to-kadish/group-criminality/united-states-v-park/