Posted By:
MisunderestimatedThese are some of the more interesting legal issues that occur to me offhand. I would be interested in knowing more about them myself if I weren't rather averse to doing legal research in my spare time:
-- While hardly limited to baseball cards -- auction law is especially significant in the hobby. This is especially true where state laws differ and, of course, on eBay. I haven't actually ever looked at whatever auction law you agree to when buying-selling on eBay but I would think an audience of future lawyers might find that especially interesting.
As I understand it there are a number of higher profile cases where eBay has been sued for one thing or another based on what is sold on eBay (large class actions). e-commerce on the scale of eBay is a relatively recent phenomena and there is minimal specific statutory law so the stakes for applying laws drafted prior to the advent of eBay to eBay and similar "markets" are very high.
As the prior posts suggest one of the biggest issues is determing what if any damages there are in a given case of fraud or breach of contract. Cards and other collectibles can be very difficult to place a clear value on -- and this difficulty along with problems of collecting the damages once they are ascertained are among the major the reasons I beleive that so few claims are ever actually brought.