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Forced Arbitration Isn't 'Forced' Because No One Has To Buy Service, Says AT&T (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: AT&T is denying that its contracts include "forced arbitration" clauses, even though customers must agree to the clauses in order to obtain Internet or TV service. "At the outset, no AT&T customer is ever 'forced' to agree to arbitration," AT&T Executive VP Tim McKone wrote in a letter to U.S. senators. "Customers accept their contracts with AT&T freely and voluntarily; no one 'forces' them to obtain AT&T wireless service, DirecTV programming, or other products and services." AT&T was responding to concerns raised by Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and Edward Markey (D-Mass.), who previously alleged that AT&T's use of forced arbitration clauses has helped the company charge higher prices than the ones it advertises to customers. While AT&T is correct that no one is forced to sign up for AT&T service, there are numerous areas of the country where AT&T is the only viable option for wired home Internet service. Even in wireless, where there's more competition, AT&T rivals Verizon and Sprint use mandatory arbitration clauses, so signing up with another carrier won't necessarily let customers avoid arbitration. One exception is T-Mobile, which offers a way to opt out of arbitration. The terms of service for AT&T Internet and DirecTV require customers to "agree to arbitrate all disputes and claims" against AT&T. Class actions and trials by jury are prohibited, although individual cases in small claims courts are allowed. AT&T doesn't offer any way to opt out of the arbitration/small claims provision, so the only other option is not buying service from AT&T.
And if you accept that the free market should best sort these things out then this is the way to go. Let the two parties take care of it and if people don't like it they can vote with their wallets. Someone's bound to come along and compete directly with AT&T, right?
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The true option is to go to court anyway, most small claims courts will not allow those clauses to stand, you can't sign away your state's right to control commerce, you don't have that sort of authority.
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In cases where the company is breaking Canadian law, contract language to force arbitration in California is null and void. A class action about “Sponsored Stories”, which uses the name and picture of a customer "without consent for the purposes of advertising" will go forward.
The legalese is summarized at http://www.slaw.ca/2017/06/28/... and the full case is https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/s...
It's primarily an arguement about choice of forum (country) in a contract.
davecb@spamcop.net
AT&T has sued cities to prevent competition. This is part of the broken pattern here in America. Powerful companies openly flout the law, and then find some technicalities to hide behind. Everyone knows it's BS, and the only question is how long it can go on before the public breaks out the guillotines and starts setting things on fire. Those profiting are betting the answer is "long enough to flee and live like kings in Patagonia".
Rule 35 of the internet: "If it can be hacked, it will be". - Charles Stross
Philosophers call this sort of "choice" a Hobson's choice. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson%27s_choice
Has anyone here ever received anything of value from a class action lawsuit? My best win so far is a $10 check. Most of the time I never received anything, and a few times I have received useless coupons.
On the other hand the lawyers doing these suits get paychecks of $10M or more. And where do you think this $10M comes from? It is being added to the price of the product. I think it is probably more cost effective for consumers that these class actions are stopped. I don't really see them as helping consumers, instead they just enrich lawyers.
I think it is far more effective to bombard a company with a thousand individual small claims. That makes them have to show up which costs them a lot of money. And get this -- you can actually win in small claims. My best win in small claims is over $5,000. Several times the judge has just ripped up their thirty page contracts, asked their rep if I have been harmed, and when they say yes, he awards what I am asking for. These small claim judges work more on what is a reasonable outcome, not on what is contained in a lopsided thirty page contract which the consumer is powerless to alter.
In one case the judge even yelled at them for putting such ridiculous clauses in the contract. That was with ADT which has a clause stating that if you moved the contract automatically extended three years. I had moved three times so my original contract had extended to 12 years. Then I moved into a high rise which did not allow alarms and tried to terminate. ADT demanded over $10,000 to terminate my contract. They ended up with nothing.
Much more impact could be created by publicizing packets of info instructing exactly how to file the small claim and what to say. Filing small claims is usually less than $100 and you almost always get more than $100 back. And filing small claims very clearly lets the corporation know that their customers are upset with them. That turns the customers in to real people, not just faceless names. Plus I've only had two companies argue with me, the rest have settled and tried to patch things up. Base on my tiny sample two responses occur - we're sorry, let's try to make things right - or please refer to the fine print on page 31, now read the clause on page 7, next the judge yells at them and tells them to write contracts consumers can comprehend.
These large class actions just get shuffled off to the legal department and ignored as a cost of doing business. I think they are completely ineffective and only serve to enrich the lawyers. Making the settlement bigger will get transferred directly into higher product prices.
Of course filing a small claim means you personally have to take some action which is much more effort that signing the bottom of some form that comes in the mail. In my opinion the cumulative effect of the small claims is much more impactful.
I'm afraid that there are too many cases where "just get another job!" has been an excuse for systemic Gender abuse, racism, and homophobia in the workplace are merely examples. It's also included unpaid overtime, nepotism, sexual harassment, and employment fraud. Forced arbitration, which is what this inherently is for all employees, provides much stronger benefit to the larger legal entity, who is typically the entity that selects the arbitrator. These arbitrations are also typically sealed: the evidence submitted to them is not available to any other possible plaintiffs.
From my experience with corporate lawsuits, they're workable for modest cases where the cost of a lawsuit would outweigh the cost of any reasonable settlement. But they have no legally binding force for anyone but the plaintiff and that company's relationship with that particular plaintiff. For widespread workplace abuse, they're not helpful at stopping or preventing the abuse as a matter of policy.