Today kicks off the shopping season across the country with stores trying to lure in customers with big sales. Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller says helping consumers go to court and win when they’ve been misled about a product they’ve purchased will be a top priority of his office when lawmakers reconvene in January. Miller says he’ll again push legislation to allow individual citizens to use modern consumer protection law to claim consumer fraud.
The A.G. says the democratic majority did not reject the bill out of hand last year, but other bills opposed by the business community got passed instead. Miller says we sort of ran out of time, with business interests saying you voted against us on car title, on minimum wage. Just a variety of things happened last year at the end of the session.
Miller says it’s needed to bring Iowa in step with the rest of the country, as he says Iowa is the only state where an individual citizen can not use modern consumer fraud law to recover damages from companies. Miller says the modern law requires you to show there was fraud or deception, or misrepresentation. He says it’s a cleaner law that’s more efficient in court. Miller hopes the law will gain hold this year.