In a case with important impacts for employees who are battling racial discrimination at their job site, the California Supreme Court has ruled that an employer’s arbitration clause does not prevent employees from seeking to arbitrate their case together as a class.
By Gabriel Hopkins Thornton-Robb Attorney Photo by Mike Rastiello on Flickr Arbitration is nearly everywhere. For the millions of Texas residents who own a home, one of the few places that they don’t encounter forced arbitration clauses is in their homeowner’s insurance policies. But now, Texas…
By Arthur Bryant Chairman When corporations or the government value money over lives and safety, injure people, or discriminate against them, the courts are where they can be held accountable. But corporate and government wrongdoers don’t want to be held accountable. That’s why, for decades,…
Two weeks ago, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unveiled a new rule that would prohibit lenders from including forced arbitration clauses with class action bans in their lending contracts. Today, Public Justice’s Executive Director, Paul Bland, will testify in front of the House’s Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee in support of this rule.
Corporations took a shot at gutting America’s privacy laws, and they missed. The U.S. Supreme has found that consumers can bring claims for statutory damages (where Congress says that if a corporation breaks some law, it must pay a fixed sum, even if the claims are hard to prove), even if the consumer has not lost money or suffered a personal injury. In doing so, they rejected several arguments from corporate America that would have closed the courthouse doors to consumers.
After years of discussions and debates, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is unveiling a major new rule that will prohibit lenders from including forced arbitration clauses with class action bans in their lending contracts.
A powerful blow has just been struck by the Ninth Circuit today, as it’s rejected a corporation’s effort to escape from legal liability by paying off a few individuals to wipe away the claims of thousands. This is a gigantic victory for consumers and workers.
And now for some rare but good news on the class action front from the U.S. Supreme Court:
For months now, Supreme Court watchers have been waiting with bated breath to see whether food industry giant Tyson Foods, Inc. would succeed in its bid to reverse a $5.8 million judgment in favor of Iowa meat processing employees who were not paid for their time “donning and doffing” protective equipment.
Well guess what? Tyson Foods lost.
As the New York Times recently reported, corporations have been taking away Americans’ ability to sue in court if the company harms them, without most people even being aware that they have given up their Constitutional rights. Corporations do this by slipping provisions into “terms and conditions” on the back of product packaging, or on the bottom of webpages, or buried in dense contracts that patients must sign before entering a hospital or nursing home.