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Supreme Court: AT&T Can Force Arbitration
suraj.sun writes with this unhappy news, as reported by Ars Technica: "The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that AT&T — and indeed, any company — could block class-action suits arising from disputes with customers and instead force those customers into binding arbitration. The ruling reverses previous lower-court decisions that classified stipulations in AT&T's service contract which barred class arbitration as 'unconscionable.' ... In cases where an unfair practice affects large numbers of customers, AT&T or other companies could quietly settle a few individual claims instead of being faced with larger class-action settlements which might include punitive awards designed to discourage future bad practices."
Mandatory corporate kangaroo courts! What could possibly go wrong?
Basically, the Supreme Court saw last night's South Park and said "Yeah, that's exactly how the legal system should work!"
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
*shrug*
I'm slightly torn on this. On the one side, this means that there won't be ridiculous class action settlements where the class members get a $5 coupon towards future purchases while the lawyers get millions of dollars. On the other side, it effectively removes the only real consumer protection from wide spread practices.
I'd have to say, I'm leaning more towards it being a bad thing.
They certainly can try, apparently. It sure is a good thing that we have arbitration clauses to prevent people gang-raped on the job from having the hassle of an actual trial, when they could simply have a closed-door proceeding run by somebody hired by their employer instead...
This is what 8 years of Bush bought us folks, a Supreme Court on the take (look it up, it's a fact that Clarance Thomas took bribes). Hopefully a few of 'em 'll retire while the Dems are in and Obama'll man up and put some liberals in.
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They're just a way for legal firms to make ridiculous amounts of money. They're an abomination.
AT&T can only force arbitration if you agreed to it in your contract. Which you did. All major companies make it a condition of the sale.
What the court decided is that you can't get out of your contractual agreement with a class-action suit.
The unconscionable part here is the law that they're upholding, the Federal Arbitration Act, which basically lets you give up your right to sue. You don't have to, but they don't have to give you the service, unless you agree to meet in a court of their choosing. Which, of course, they'll always require, as long as the law allows them to.
That's been upheld before. This case is just deciding that the federal law trumps state anti-arbitration laws. I find it unconscionable in both cases, and "unconscionable" is supposed to be a way out of contracts, but the existence of the federal law and 5 Republican appointees on the Supreme Court says I'm wrong.
Arbitration = "impartial" non-accredited non-monitored unaccountable random person bought and paid for, who if he decides for the customer more than once in a great while is fired in favor of another "impartial" random person. Alternate definition: how to bribe a civil court judge legally.
No arbiter can be impartial. Their livelihood depends upon bias and outright prejudice (as in "pre-judging"). It is not an honorable profession.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
Justice Roberts once again proves his obedience to his corporate masters. Once upon a time the SCOTUS was seen as above such petty matters. Now it is clearly the pawn of the corporations - and this has been obvious ever since the ruling which allowed the corporations unlimited access to fund/bribe politicians.
Yeah, just pick one of the zero phone companies that have no arbitration clause. What the heck do you need phone service for? Or natural gas, or electricity!
So next time you'll have a choice between two operators. Both of them will have 'mandatory arbitration' clause.
Sure, no pressure. You can always move to another country, right?
Just don't use a cellphone. Or a landline. Or cable TV. Smoke signals are right out, but Semaphores between the hours of 10am and 4pm will still be allowed. (Tin cans and string will be allowed, as long as you don't have to cross a public street and it's not a permanent installation)
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
What should be illegal is a company's contract blocking your legal recourse if they screw you over. This is what Paypal did too and pretty much robbing their own customers who could not sue them in return because of the same type of garbage.
McDonalds requires every employee to sign away class action rights -- boom, they can nick a buck off each employee every day and it will never be worth an individual suit. They can just fire you as the total from you approaches the cost of filing your claim.
Add in Walmart and all the other chain stores and shady dealers. This ruling was NOT limited to consumer cases.
-GiH
(Yes, IAAL)
Well, "supposedly" you can negotiate your contract.
Nevermind that the squibs in the stores (or on the phone, whatever) would look at you like you're insane if you even tried to do so.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Don't Supreme Court justices know the law anymore? This decision is so out in right field that it doesn't even pretend to be supported by law passed by Congress. Contracts used to be invalid if:
1) They are so one-side as to be entirely unfair.
2) They force one party into a position because there is no alternative (the offer you can't refuse).
Carrier-forced arbitration meets both these points. Carriers, by the nature of their enormous power relative to consumers, will always win arbitration because the arbitrators are, for all practical purposes, on the carriers' payrolls. This is because carriers are repeat customers, whereas carrier customers are not. This severely biases the arbitrator in favor of the carriers. There is no easy way to make this even remotely fair to carrier customers. This, by itself, would be enough to nullify arbitration clauses in any sane country.
Carrier customers have no choice but to have a phone of some sort. You just can't exist in most modern markets without the ability to communicate with other people. And all carriers have the same arbitration clause in their contract, so customers have no alternative. This should also, all by itself, be enough to nullify arbitration clauses in contracts in any sane country.
Put these two things together, and it's clear that the Surpeme Court has no intention of applying the law. It seems that they don't even bother reading it anymore. They just want to apply their own sense of right and wrong as it aligns with their political philosophies. If we had a Constitutional Supreme Court, meaning a Supreme Court defined and authorized by our Constitution, prior to this ruling, it just evaporated.
Is binding arbitration actually in the contract people sign when they sign up for the service?
It is. It is also in your contract for your loans, your contract for your bank accounts, your contract for your HOA, your employment contract, your insurance policy, your airplane ticket, your computer purchase, and probably even in real fine print at the bottom of your menu when you go out to eat.
Don't worry though, it's only binding to you. If you don't like the outcome the company bought from the arbiter of their choice and dare to complain about the company online, they're free to use real courts to sue you over and over until you stop making them look bad.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
They can. And I would recommend you read fuzzyfuzzyfungus' link. Al Franken proposed a bill placing limits on what companies could arbitrate, which did pass, with GOP opposition. The bill stated that the Government cannot hire contractors that require arbitration in cases of rape, sexual harassment, discrimination, etc.
Absolutely nothing, pretty much guaranteed.
...If you're a corporation.
I think that was the whole point over fighting such a silly case all the way up to the Supreme Court--to virtually guarantee that you can never be subject to a class action case again. Let's not kid ourselves, who here thinks that any company will ever again sell any service again without a clause in it forcing arbitration and disallowing class action lawsuits?
Per Jeffrey Toobin, “in every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff.” That’s conservative jurisprudence in a nutshell.
As has become abundantly clear, "activist judges" are only a problem when their rulings don't fit the conservative POV.
Luke, help me take this mask off
As patently stupid as this is, the court forgot one detail:
There is nothing that says customers can't band together and force AT&T to arbitrate with a large group of people at the same time. Or drag out the arbitration proceedings until they are no longer profitable.
It would be nice to see some states force companies to give up the right to forced arbitration as a condition of doing business in their state! No state is obligated to permit a business to operate, especially if they deny a permit to operate as a means of protecting their citizens from unfair practices.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
In a class action lawsuit, if I'm the lucky first guy to file, I might get a couple G's to serve as lead plaintiff, the lawyers make tens of millions of dollars, and everyone else gets a coupon for $10 off their next phone.
It's the punitive aspect of it that's important. Sure, you may get a check for $0.83, but if you multiply that by millions, plus tack on legal fees, it ends up putting a serious dent in the company's profits. That's the main point of class action lawsuits. Not so much to make you rich, but to make sure the company doesn't do whatever boneheaded thing they did again, to teach them a lesson.
Of course, now, companies are free to put arbitration/non-class action clauses in every damn contract they write, and no matter how irresponsible they are, they get off scott free.
I'll take the liberal. Why? Because at least right now liberal means progressive, and at least that's progress. Yes, there's 'Blue dog' liberals, ones that aren't really liberals, but we can weed them out with time and effort. It's like my buddy keeps telling me: "why should I bother voting? I'm just going to lose!". The answer is, if you don't vote, if you don't do SOMETHING to keep the bastards in check and try to make PROGRESS, they're run roughshod all over you. Frankly, I would care if they did that to you, but you end up dragging me down with you.
So get off your high horse and go vote FOR SOMETHING. And for God's sake, if you're poor or middle class, read up on what the conservatives are actually proposing. Unless your rich (or astroturfing for the rich) You'll be a liberal before you know it.
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OK, so in arbitration, I get my sales tax back.
In a class action lawsuit, if I'm the lucky first guy to file, I might get a couple G's to serve as lead plaintiff, the lawyers make tens of millions of dollars, and everyone else gets a coupon for $10 off their next phone.
How much did I really lose here?
The question you pose is valid only if you believe the entire affair is all about your personal financial gain and how to maximize it.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
You're thinking of the way things use to be. Arbiters are currently chosen by the corporation. You have no say in who hears your case. The Christian Science Monitor reports that the arbitration firms find in favor of the corporation against the consumer 98.4% of the time and the remaining 1.6% offer consumers laughably small compensation that does not even come close to making them whole.
Let me put it bluntly to be clear. No consumer has ever won in arbitration. Under the current regime, none of them ever will.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."