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AT&T v. Concepcion: The death knell of class actions?
Brian888
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
The Supreme Court is hearing arguments today in the matter of AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion. This is a big fucking deal. Citizens United big.
At issue is the fine print of AT&T's service contract in California. It stated that customers could only resolve disputes with AT&T via arbitration, not in court. However, California state law holds that arbitration clauses may not stop a consumer from joining a class action arbitration against the company in question.
Class actions are important. If AT&T dicks you out of $100, you probably won't go to arbitration against them, because of the time it takes and the legal fees you'd have to pay. AT&T knows this, and would happily dick over thousands or millions of people, raking in unjustified profits while secure in the knowledge that almost nobody would challenge them. Class actions stop this by allowing all those consumers to band together in one massive action against the company. No one plaintiff has to shoulder the legal costs of the suit, and the company stands to lose millions all at once. It's a deterrent to company douchebaggery. Moreover, class actions are often the only way to demonstrate patterns of racism or sexism by companies.
If the Supreme Court finds in favor of AT&T, you can kiss class action suits goodbye. Every service contract under the sun that doesn't already have an arbitration clause will include one. If you don't want to be forced into individual arbitration, you don't get the service. So sorry.
This is a very pro-business Supreme Court, so I don't have high hopes that it will reach the correct decision and tell AT&T to go piss up a rope. We're entering grim times.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131167213
http://www.prwatch.org/node/9588
At issue is the fine print of AT&T's service contract in California. It stated that customers could only resolve disputes with AT&T via arbitration, not in court. However, California state law holds that arbitration clauses may not stop a consumer from joining a class action arbitration against the company in question.
Class actions are important. If AT&T dicks you out of $100, you probably won't go to arbitration against them, because of the time it takes and the legal fees you'd have to pay. AT&T knows this, and would happily dick over thousands or millions of people, raking in unjustified profits while secure in the knowledge that almost nobody would challenge them. Class actions stop this by allowing all those consumers to band together in one massive action against the company. No one plaintiff has to shoulder the legal costs of the suit, and the company stands to lose millions all at once. It's a deterrent to company douchebaggery. Moreover, class actions are often the only way to demonstrate patterns of racism or sexism by companies.
If the Supreme Court finds in favor of AT&T, you can kiss class action suits goodbye. Every service contract under the sun that doesn't already have an arbitration clause will include one. If you don't want to be forced into individual arbitration, you don't get the service. So sorry.
This is a very pro-business Supreme Court, so I don't have high hopes that it will reach the correct decision and tell AT&T to go piss up a rope. We're entering grim times.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131167213
http://www.prwatch.org/node/9588
Brian888 on
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That being said, our class-action system needs to be reformed. It's currently basically just a lottery for plaintiff's lawyers.
Rigorous Scholarship
The problem is determining whether California law conflicts with the Federal Arbitration Act, and if so, which is preempted.
That's a...tad overstated. And I'm not even a plaintiff's attorney.
The Senate said "fuck you" to that arbitration shit so that she and any future victims of any sort could take their employers to court.
AT&T isn't going to win this.
I sincerely hope you're right.
Additionally, the Franken amendment is pretty narrowly tailored, as far as I can tell. If the Court rules the wrong way on this, it would require Congressional action to fix (by amending the Federal Arbitration Act, for example). I don't foresee that happening with this Congress.
Rigorous Scholarship
They are allowed to exist for the benefit of the public at large.
I never said there was anything wrong about not existing for public benefit, just that this is a reminder of that.
And attempting to become immune to scummy acts is scummy. Class actions exist for a reason; just recently, I became embroiled in the whole Saturn settlement because their VTi transmissions go bad very quickly. Saturn went bankrupt and now GM refuses to pay out, so a shitload of people are just out of luck with their vehicles they paid thousands of dollars for becoming $250 paperweights. This is called screwing people over, which is scummy in and of itself, but weaseling out of possible consequences for it is not only scummy, it's likely to increase the frequency with which people get screwed over.
Rigorous Scholarship
I think he's making more of a social-contract argument here, about how societies generally are organized for a broad concept of public/mutual good, and that we legislate to obtain an optimal version of that within the popular consensus/majority. So, businesses exist to further the public good in the sense that all the pieces of our society exist to serve the public good -- and if they don't, then we attend with them with legislation until they do (in theory)
That's what I got out of it, too. But I understand where the misunderstanding might come up.
More specifically, corporations could not exist without the legal framework created for them. If they don't serve the public good, that framework can be taken away.
Rigorous Scholarship
I don't think it's a threat so much as a philosophical point
but honestly, the $20 or so i received for being part of the class action suit against toshiba for their laptop batteries blowing up? not really sure what i can say about that.
it's like, maybe people don't sue for small amounts because it's not worth it and we shouldn't be clogging up the legal system with this shit but fuck companies who try to screw people over and they all deserve to be fucked right up the ass but man $20 really that's it what the fuck my toshiba laptop sucks ass it's probably my fault for receiving it as a gift from someone.
Thus they should be made to pay, in full, for shitty business practices.
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Without the class action suit, how much money do you think you would have received from Toshiba?
Wut?
You missed that gem?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Leigh_Jones
IIRC, the other laugh of the case was the rape kit being given to the accused party for safe keeping.
First I read about the sports guy going to jail for 10 years getting a BJ from a gril who said it was consensual and then I read about some lady getting locked in a box after being gang raped.
What the fuck world, what the fuck?
The forum even did an ad on Youtube about the 30 Republicans who voted against the amendment to prevent shit like this from happening again.
The whole point of a class action is that without them, toshiba could screw you for precisely the $ value that would mean you wouldn't take any action individually. With a class action, if Toshiba rips off 100000 people for about $20 each, then you can get some justice done. Is your claim worth more? maybe - you could always object to the settlement or opt out.
Right. We can acknowledge that a power structure is so entrenched that it's unlikely to go away anytime soon, while simultaneously acknowledging that ideally that power structure should, first and foremost, benefit the common good.
Anyway, hopefully SCOTUS won't be retarded...
This time...
. . .
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I'm looking at the page from KBR where they try to debunk her and it's like "Oh yeah, that hot piece of skank totally deserved to be gang-raped, she was asking for it with those fake boobs, I mean right?"
I mean... really. Really?
KBR is actually the inspiration for Fable's comic book villain moral choice system.