In Major Blow To Consumers, Supreme Court Protects Mega-Corporations From Liability

[Triana]

Source: ThinkProgress & AP

(Credit: Associated Press)

In case it weren’t clear already, the U.S. Supreme Court hammered home Thursday morning that it will protect the rights of corporations to force arbitration over the individuals’ access to the court system at any expense.

In a 5-3 ruling with Justice Sonia Sotomayor recused, Justice Antonin Scalia eviscerated almost any opportunity small merchants have to challenge alleged monopolistic practices by American Express in their credit card agreements.

Sound familiar? Earlier this term, the court turned back on procedural grounds a lawsuit alleging monopolistic practices by Comcast. A week after that, they turned back the claims of workers to challenge employer practices as a class. And in 2011, they issued one of the worst blows to consumer rights in years when they held that consumers challenging $30 fees could not sue together as a class. In each of these cases, the court’s procedural rulings meant the parties may never get to argue about whether these corporations actually violated the law. And as a consequence, these corporations will never be held accountable.

With Thursday’s ruling, the court added small businesses to the list of aggrieved parties whose access to the courthouse has been foreclosed by boilerplate contracts that prohibit parties from filing their challenge as a class, or from otherwise alleviating the immense cost of filing their claims individually. This time, the litigants were small businesses taking on American Express, and their lawyer was none other than conservative powerhouse Paul Clement. Clement has argued many of the major conservative court wins of the past few years, and his argument on the side of the plaintiffs was probably the last best shot at curbing the Roberts Court’s total perversion of the Federal Arbitration Act.


Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/20/2189061/even-small-businesses-cant-shake-mega-corporations-chokehold-on-access-to-the-courts/

---

Anyone surprised that the US is completely owned and controlled by corprats, all the way up to the USSC? I keep telling people: "If you hate so-called " big government" then get your asses busy and DO something about BIG CORPORATIONS that own & control gov't - because that's the damn problem!"

[Demeter]

1. BOYCOTT

BOYCOTTBOYCOTTBOYCOTTBOYCOTTBOYCOTTBOYCOTTBOYCOTTBOYCOTTBOYCOTTBOYCOTT

[aquart]

6. It's easy to boycott American Express. Tear up their cards.

You shouldn't be carrying them anyway. They are horribly greedy and very expensive for merchants.

[stevenleser]

12. Very hard to touch them. Its the card of choice for the 1% and Corporations for Travel Expenditures

In most firms if you have to travel at all on business they issue you an Amex and require all travel expenses, air fare, hotel, meals on the road, rental cars, etc., be paid for on that card.

It's very unlikely that regular folks can touch Amex in any way with a boycott.

[Sherman A1]

13. Years ago when I was a small merchant

American Express made an appointment to come out and discuss our taking their card at our shop. They never showed up for that appointment. A few years later they made another appointment to come out and surprisingly they never showed up for that one. When I got a call from them later on to make yet another appointment, I simply told them that we would not consider accepting their card in our store if they were so very discourteous as to fail to show up and not have the decency to at least call.

So that pretty much took care of American Express in my eyes and it's chance at any piece of our business.

[booley]

44. until VISA and Master card start doing this too

And as a business owner, i know there's no way I can avoid VISA. Too many people use it.

Now that there's legal cover, expect other companies to take advantage of this.

[aquart]

58. Certainly, if we place no penalty on it.

But a refusal to use AmEx will be noticed.

Hurt their bottom line.

[leftyohiolib]

14. it's past boycot time we need a national strike

[aquart]

59. So? Stand up. See if anyone stands with you.

No? Then NO, it's not time.

I really hate hysterical knee-jerk reactions.

[Veilex]

17. I don't tend to recommend products... cause well, theres enough commercials...

and other garbage out there... but this might actually be useful: http://www.buycott.com/

[Lucky Luciano]

39. Hard to do. I pay my rent on my Amex which gives me a ton of points.

It is roughly like getting a $50 rebate each month on my rent doing it that way.

[onehandle]

2. As always. Thanks, Ralph. nt

[limpyhobbler]

3. yikes nt

[AndyA]

4. $$$$$ is all that matters in America today $$$$$

If you haven't got $$$$$, no one really gives a sh!t about you. We have the best government $$$$$ can buy.

[RoccoR5955]

51. It's been that way for quite some time.

As long as I can remember, and I am 58

[avaistheone1]

5. WTF How can this be?

[City Lights]

7. ...of, by, and for the corporations.

The people are irrelevant.

The name of the country should be changed to the United Corporations of America.

[heaven05]

8. that

has a ring to it. Could that be because it is true?

[OhioChick]

9. +1000 n/t

[pocoloco]

41. People are certainly not irrelevant!!

People are "The" cash crop!

[xtraxritical]

10. Cut up AE cards right now!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

11. I hope that there have been no 'backhanders?'

another word for bribe - I hope that our judicial branch have no resorted to such things

[Fuddnik]

15. Put some pressure on Costco.

Their credit card is an American Express.

The only reason I have one.

[csziggy]

19. I just use cash or debit at Costco - I will not own an American Express card

Over 30 years ago I had a problem with my American Express account. They were incredibly rude and obnoxious over the entire thing - which was a misunderstanding. About the same time I had a discussion with a small business owner about why they did not take AE - AE had MUCH higher fees for the business than any other credit card at the time. So I paid the amount owed to AE and closed the account. Haven't missed it, ever.

Every month I get several offers for American Express cards - they all got straight to the shredder. I don't even open them.

[SoapBox]

21. Ditto about their high processing fees.

They cost small business a lot of money...hate them.

[Fuddnik]

24. If I happen to run across a merchant that I dislike, and have to use,

They get the American Express, even if I planned on paying cash.

[LittleGirl]

56. ooops,

I love my Amer Exp card. It pays out once a year and pays for our executive membership for Costco. I use it everywhere. I don't think I could give it up. sorry, I can't boycott.

I don't agree with the courts decision either.

[nineteen50]

16. Ain't fascism

grand?

[azurnoir]

18. so who the SCOTUS work for again?

[SoapBox]

22. Not the 99%! nt

[azurnoir]

32. +1000

not when it comes to the corporate personhoods anyway

[Triana]

29. Koch Industries, Exxon-Mobil, American Express, Goldman-Sachs...

...you know, legal psychopathic entities known as "corporations", which they've declared are "people". As for ACTUAL people, USSC flatly says: "go to hell."

[azurnoir]

31. yep +1,000

[MADem]

20. Corporations are people my friend...and they're more important than consumers! nt

[rhett o rick]

40. Corporations arent people. They are the gods. nm

[WillyT]

23. K & R !!!

[Initech]

25. Why in hell haven't we made a move to impeach Scalia yet?

He does not represent us. He represents the big wealthy business interests.

[kestrel91316]

26. One more reason I'm not interested in doing business with American Express.

[Alhena]

27. A boycott is pointless ...

As an attorney, I can tell you that every company in America is going to have an arbitration provision taking advantage of this ruling, if they don't have one already (and they probably did after the US Supreme Court's prior gifts to corporations in the Concepcion and Rent-A-Center decisions). It will be included in the fine print of every credit card agreement, every phone service agreement, you name it.

And then the companies can feel quite comfortable in committing fraud upon consumers, knowing full well that they can't afford to file an individual arbitration action.

It's not just AmEx that benefits from this. Any corporation that deals with consumers does, and it would be corporate malpractice not to insert the magic fine print into their agreements that says they never have to worry about getting sued for ripping consumers off.

On the bright side, if we keep electing Democratic presidents eventually one of the conservative 5 is going to die or retire and be replaced by someone more consumer-friendly.

[bvar22]

28. You can thank the "Centrist" Democrats for this one too!

The Republicans could have NEVER put Alito and Roberts on the Supreme Court without the direct help of the "Centrist" Democrats.

If you have forgotten,
Google: "Gang of 14"

[socialist_n_TN]

30. The petit bourgeoisie ought to look at this ....

and understand where their interests lie. And it's obviously NOT with the big bourgeoisie. It's with the working class.

[Jefferson23]

33. Disgusting but not surprising. n/t

K&R

[They_Live]

34. Perhaps if we, as consumers, formed our own

mega-corporation, a consumers corporation, then we too will be free of liability. Utterly ridiculous.

[happyslug]

35. Here is the actual opinion

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-133_19m1.pdf

[Uncle Joe]

36. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Triana.

[blkmusclmachine]

37. Corporations are people, my friend!

[panzerfaust]

42. Thanks (I suppose) for the reminder that we have the best government money can buy.

"Corporations are people, my friend... of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People's pockets. Human beings my friend."

Mitt Romoney
Aug 2011

[cantbeserious]

55. How's That Conversation Going With Your Local Friendly Corporations

eom

[DarthDem]

38. Justice Kagan's Dissent Is Briiliant.

Sharp, sarcastic, penetrates Scalia's irrational grounds easiky, and even funny. Bravo!

I don't know if this will have the broad effect that we fear (although it certainly doesn't help matters). One of the problems that the conservatives on the Court often have is that they have to tie themselves in knots to justify their tortured, results-oriented "logic," and this enables clever district and circuit judges to evade the SCOTUS holdings if they wish. Here, Scalia made no attempt to overrule the "effective vindication" rule, so it remains valid. Moreover, the party challenging the arb agreement here was not a consumer, but a small business, and the case might also be limited in future application to the antitrust realm. Bad, yes, but not as bad as it could be.

Still: we need to get Congress back so we can invalidate bad decisions like this one via legislative amendments, like the Ledbetter Act.

[mountain grammy]

47. she is brilliant. a shining light among dimwits.

[raouldukelives]

43. I hear ya! Yet another win for investors!

Hoards of people putting more time & labor into supporting corporations = more money for the corporations to buy and sell us all.
You can't support the destruction of our country, our natural resources, our environment and our political process and then claim you support it.
Well, you can. That is how we got where we are. People proclaiming to be on one side while funding the attacks from the other.

[L0oniX]

45. Zombie Democracy.

[mountain grammy]

46. just in case anyone was starting to think Roberts is human

This is a reminder...he's a corporate robot. He kept Obamacare because, while it may be good for the people, its most definitely good for the corps.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

48. Can we sue Karl Malden's nose?

[ctsnowman]

49. The cons always

talk about small business but never back it up unless it's vs and individual and then it depends on who the person is.

[KauaiK]

50. Corporate coup d'etat

[Enthusiast]

52. It happened in the 1990s with Gramm-Leach-Bliley, NAFTA and

the Telecommunications Act

[cantbeserious]

53. Agreed - The Oligarchs Own And Control The Corporations That Own And Control Us

eom

[allan01]

54. reIn Major Blow To Consumers, Supreme Court Protects Mega-Corporations From Liability

i was a 4 year accounting student in college, and had a wonderful accounting instructor. he really opened my eyes up to practical math. he also stated along with insurance, credit cards are the biggest legal scams in history.

[Raster]

57. And his should come as a surprise? Seriously, did anyone capable of rational thought...

...expect anything more? The SCOTUS have made it very clear that their allegiance is not to the rule of law, but to the rule of money and corporate power.

[nikto]

60. The Korporate Court

THE CORPORATE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.