Corporate Kangaroo Courts Killing Class Action Lawsuits And Destroy Constitutional Right To Jury Trials

by Monica Davis

Corporations are increasingly turning to arbitration as a way to decrease court and legal costs. And they’re also forcing employees and customers to accept arbitration, rather than going to court to have their case heard by a judge and jury.

And they are forcing employees and customers to accept arbitration, instead of going to court in a lawsuit or class action suit.

So-called forced arbitration clauses say that in the event of a dispute, you won’t be able to file a class-action suit. Instead, your dispute will be settled one-on-one in a private arbitration forum. These clauses are commonly inserted into terms of service agreements, which you must agree to if you want to use the product or service.

For years, this practice was prohibited by law in many states. But in 2011 the Supreme Court ruled in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion that all state laws prohibiting forced arbitration clauses are preempted by the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act. And that opened the floodgates. MOREHERE

Increasingly corporations with deep pockets are turning to the arbitration process to save legal costs and to ward off expensive lawsuits. In many cases where a service is involved, the company protects itself by forcing customers to sign service agreements which mandate arabitration to settle disputs.

By signing the service contract, you sign away your right to sue.

Being wronged by a corporation is painful enough, but getting your day in court is no picnic either. Aside from having to go up against a deep-pocket corporation’s pack of snarling lawyers, the judicial system itself is cumbersome, slow, and costly. And to us uninitiated outsiders, a courtroom’s cult-like rituals, punctilious language, and black-robed authoritarians are intimidating. No wonder so many of the workers, consumers, small businesses, and others who get stomped on by the corporate powers shy away from taking their legitimate grievances into those chambers.

Luckily, though, a less formal, alternative system is available to render justice in disputes between corporations and aggrieved citizens. Arbitration, it’s called, allowing two conflicting parties to choose a neutral third party to review facts, hear-out both sides, and make a ruling to resolve the conflict. “Faster, cheaper, and more efficient!” exclaim effusive proponents of the arbitration process. MOREHERE