Here. Tim Danahey interviews Theresa Amato of Fair Contracts.org and Citizen Works. Theresa discusses how consumer contracts reduce consumers to "contract serfdom" and also explores issues governing arbitration clauses. Worth a listen, and if you are teaching consumer law this semester, this merits passing on to students as a painless way to learn about consumer protection […]
Category Archives: Arbitration
by Jeff Sovern A theme of the President's state of the union address was that if he cannot achieve his goals by working with Congress, he will pursue those goals unilaterally, to the extent he can, through executive action. One tool presidents have is the purchasing power of the United States. The US buys about […]
Even as the Supreme Court has aggressively wielded the Federal Arbitration Act to preempt state-law contract rules that prevent arbitration, state courts have still been able to use traditional contract doctrines to invalidate arbitration agreements that are unfairly "one-sided" — for instance, where an agreement provides that a business gets to bring its claims in […]
by Jeff Sovern I'm finally getting around to reading the CFPB's December 12 report, Arbitration Study: Preliminary Results, about which Brian blogged here. Though the Bureau does not make much of it, perhaps because the natural experiment has some flaws (as natural experiments often do), the CFPB Study sheds some light on the impact of arbitration […]
Sarah Rudolph Cole of Ohio State haas written The Federalization of Consumer Arbitration: Possible Solutions. Here is the abstract: Over the past fifteen to twenty years, businesses dramatically increased the use of arbitration clauses in contracts with consumers. Although commentators criticize the use of arbitration to resolve consumer disputes because arbitration lacks the due process […]
by Deepak Gupta In a much-anticipated decision, the Fifth Circuit held today that the National Labor Relations Board overstepped its authority when it ruled that an employer violated federal labor law by requiring its employees to sign an arbitration agreement containing a class-action ban. Judge Leslie Southwick, joined by Judge King, isssued the opinion for the court. Here's […]
Shauhin A. Talesh of Irvin has written How the 'Haves' Come Out Ahead in the Twenty-First Century, 62 De Paul Law Review .519 (2013). Here is the abstract: This paper attempts to bridge and link the “speculations” in Marc Galanter’s seminal article in 1974 regarding how repeat players influence public legal institutions by playing for […]
by Deepak Gupta In a 70-page opinion by Justice Goodwin Liu, the California Supreme Court on Thursday issued its eagerly anticipated decision in Sonic-Calabasas v. Moreno. Addressing the impact of both AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion and American Express v. Italian Colors for the first time, the court makes clear that unconscionability — focused on whether […]
Linda Mullenix of Texas has written The Court's 2012 Class Act: A Little Bit of This, a Little Bit of That, 40 Preview of U. S. Supreme Court Cases 328 (2013). Here's the abstract: Building on the Court’s heightened interest in class action litigation, the Court during the 2012-13 term issued an unprecedented six decisions […]