WILL THE SUPREME COURT ISSUE A WILDLY ACTIVIST DECISION IN ATT MOBILITY V. CONCEPCION?
By Paul Bland, Public Justice Senior Attorney; Claire Prestel, Public Justice Staff Attorney; and Melanie Hirsch, Public Justice Brayton-Baron Fellow
[Click here to read Paul Bland's article on What Concepcion Could Mean to State Consumer Protection Laws.]
The consumer and civil rights communities are closely watching AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, a case that will be argued in the Supreme Court this November. Depending on how broadly the Court reads the question presented in Concepcion, the case could decide the fate of consumer and employee class actions for years to come.
The Corporate Abuse at the Heart of Concepcion
The Concepcion case involves the widespread corporate practice of using standard-form contracts to ban class actions. Many state courts have held such class-action bans unenforceable, but AT&T Mobility (“ATTM”) has asked the Supreme Court to find that at least some of that state law is preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”). To understand why the Court’s holding in Concepcion could be so significant, it is important to understand how class-action bans come to be and why they are often disastrous for consumers and employees.
Class-action bans are contract terms that purport to prevent consumers and employees from ever participating in class proceedings. As in Concepcion, they are often buried in companies’ standardized arbitration clauses. Class-action bans favor companies at consumers’ and employees’ expense, but companies can impose them unilaterally because they draft the contracts. Consumers and employees rarely have time to read the lengthy agreements companies send them, let alone the ability to understand their dense legalese. And even if they did, few consumers or employees could negotiate the contracts’ terms. READ MORE.
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