Report Traces Legal History of Mandatory Arbitration<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n I guess we can always boycott the companies whose consumer contracts include mandated arbitration clauses. If we can read the teeny teeny small print.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the exemplary Brennan Center, a warning for all of us consumers: ACCESS TO JUSTICE Report Traces Legal History of Mandatory Arbitration Thanks to the courts, corporations now enjoy near-total protection from class-action lawsuits, according to the Washington Monthly. In … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.brennancenter.org\/sites\/default\/files\/analysis\/Buying_Time\/fineprint.jpg\")
Thanks to the courts, corporations now enjoy near-total protection from class-action lawsuits, according to the Washington Monthly<\/a>. In \u201cThrown Out of Court,\u201d Lina Khan asserts that two recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings allow companies to include fine print arbitration clauses in their contracts with consumers which prohibit consumers from bringing lawsuits. \u201cThe [Supreme Court] decisions culminate a thirty-year trend during which the judiciary, including initially some prominent liberal jurists, has moved to eliminate courts as a means for ordinary Americans to uphold their rights against companies.\u201d Khan describes the challenge now faced by a wronged consumer, a situation in which \u201cyour only path for recourse if you\u2019re harmed by any one of [the corporations] is \u2018mandatory arbitration,\u2019 where the arbitrator is often chosen by the corporation you\u2019re challenging, and any revelations about the company\u2019s wrongdoing tend to be kept secret.\u201d Discouraged by this phenomenon, Kahn notes that, \u201c[r]ather than band together under the light of the public courtroom, each individual has to work through the darkness of a private tribunal, alone, where arbitrators can interpret laws however they wish.\u201d \u201cThe whole notion of mandatory arbitration clauses is designed to disenfranchise consumers and citizens through language that nobody reads,\u201d adds Bill Brauch, director of the consumer protection division at the Iowa Attorney General\u2019s office. Taking stock of the transformed landscape of consumer legal rights, Kahn\u2019s article argues that, \u201c[c]ertain inalienable rights, the Court has ruled, are actually kind of alienable.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n