Supreme Court Upholds Arbitration In DirectTV Case

An anonymous reader sends word that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a 6-3 decision that DirecTV’s service agreement barring mass arbitration by its customers must be enforced. The NYTimes reports: "The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that dissatisfied customers of DirecTV in California could not band together in a class action and must instead pursue individual arbitrations. The decision, by a 6-to-3 vote, was the latest in a series of Supreme Court decisions that have made it harder for consumers to go to court to pursue claims of fraud and defective products."

Comments

Re:Barring arbitration altogether?

[sociocapitalist]

So why didn't totally bar arbitration altogether in its service agreement? In small print, "You cannot sue us, anytime, anywhere over anything. Period. No exceptions. Don't even dream of trying to contact a lawyer."

The company wants arbitration instead of class action suits because arbitration tends to work better for the companies than getting hit by the actual law.

Users tend to sign away their right to legal protection by agreeing to arbitration in terms of use etc., giving the company the ability to screw over large numbers of people while risking only individual lawsuits and not class action suits that would actually have some effect on the company's bottom line.

IMHO such use of arbitration should be generally illegal.

Re:"DDOS" the justice system?

[Bremen24601]

It costs so much because lawyers don't work for free.

Theoretically this is what class action suits are for. Many people who want to pursue small damages.

Re:"DDOS" the justice system?

[Kjella]

it costs so much because lawyers are greedy assholes. not working for free is one thing, working for obscene amounts of money is another.

While that is a valid topic for another day, the cost of prosecuting the shoplifting of a pack of gum is always going to cost far more than the gum no matter how reasonable the wages are. But if you didn't prosecute it, petty shoplifting would be rampant. Class actions are supposed to serve the same function for civil law, if you violate a lot of contracts for a few dollars each no individual is harmed enough to make a law suit meaningful but the class as a whole does. They know individual arbitration is a waste of our time because of the amounts involved. And they'll use the illegitimate gains from the 99% who won't complain to cover the arbitration cost.

The alternative that we have here in Norway is usually more in the direction of strong consumer protection laws, competition authorities and such but that would imply a far more regulated market that you probably don't want. And you're usually equally opposed to voluntary organizations standing up to big business like unions. Americans like to be free individuals. That tend to get stomped on by forces much bigger than themselves, then whine about it. Then demand less regulation so they can get even more screwed by even more lopsided agreements, then whine some more. Anything that even resembles collective action is stamped as socialist and evil.

There will always be power structures, if it's not big government and big business then it'll be gangs of thugs, oligarchs controlling key resources and such. And every power structure will be a mix of good and evil. Democratic institutions are not just about the public good. Capitalist institutions aren't just about fair and honest competition. Media isn't just about fair and unbiased journalism. Special interest groups don't just want their voice heard. Every power structure works for itself, the individuals in it and in collusion with other power structures. It's about keeping the giants caught in a system of checks and balances so the ants aren't stomped on. Getting "your day in court" is part of that.