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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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http://www.todaysworkplace.org/2014/12/08/outrageous-forced-arbitration-decision-consumer-has-to-arbitrate-case-involving-home-invasion-and-severe-beating-see-more-at-httpwww-publicjustice-netcontentoutrageous-forced-arbitration-deci/?can_id=cc9c7570b56cce06025c83360cdf1450&source=email-supreme-court-pregnancy-case-forced-arbitration-horrors-2&referrer=shannon-rusz&email_referrer=supreme-court-pregnancy-case-forced-arbitration-horrors-2
Outrageous Forced Arbitration Decision: Consumer Has to Arbitrate Case Involving Home Invasion and Severe Beating
December 8th, 2014 | Paul Bland
PaulBlandWeb-172I regularly hear consumer and workers’-rights advocates say this crazy thing to me: “the cases on forced arbitration are so bad, they can’t get any worse.” Um, wrong. A Missouri Court of Appeals recently issued a decision that bears me out on this point, in Johnson v. Rent-A-Center.
In this case, an 88-year-old “neighborhood staple”, Kenny Johnson, rents a refrigerator from Rent-A-Center. A guy from Rent-A-Center comes out to the consumer’s house twice to service the refrigerator. Then, the guy came a third time, the plaintiff alleges, wearing a Rent-A-Center uniform. And, according to the lawsuit and news reports, the Rent-A-Center guy, Eric Patton, seriously beat the man with gashes to his head and robbed him. He wasn’t discovered for three days. The assailant has been criminally charged.
So in the mouse print of the “agreement” the consumer had to sign to rent the refrigerator was a forced arbitration provision. The forced arbitration provision says that the arbitrator, not a court, will decide when the arbitration clause applies to some dispute. But in this case, the consumer makes a pretty strong point: he went to Rent-A-Center to get a refrigerator, he didn’t go there requesting that they send a guy to his house to beat him up and rob him.
Too bad, the court says. Listing some very pro-corporation U.S. Supreme Court decisions, the Missouri court holds that it has to enforce the arbitration clause, and let the arbitrator decide whether the dispute over the guy beating up the consumer is covered by the consumer’s contract about renting the refrigerator. In fairness to the Missouri Court of Appeal, it directly stated that it was bound to follow a U.S. Supreme Court decision, “regardless of whether we agree with the reasoning expressed therein.”
Now, not to be overly cynical, but the arbitrators get paid in these cases by the hour. So if the arbitrator finds that the case can’t be arbitrated after thinking it over for an hour, the arbitrator only gets paid for an hour. (The typical arbitrator charges several hundred dollars an hour, in many big cities it’s more than $500 an hour.) If the arbitrator finds that the case CAN be arbitrated, though, they can bill LOTS of hours. So the arbitrator has a certain financial incentive to go with Rent-A-Center here.
The upshot of all this is a court decision whose reasoning is very defensible under the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions, but the conclusion it reaches is unbelievably unfair to the consumer who was severely beaten and robbed. When a consumer signs a contract to rent a refrigerator, they think the contract is about renting a refrigerator.
If the consumer did think about the arbitration clause at all – and let’s face it, almost no one does – they would have thought: “well, this probably is talking about disputes like if the refrigerator doesn’t work or I don’t pay the rent.” No one in America would think that this was a contract that was going to decide what would happen if something unthinkable like this happens.
But welcome to 2014 America’s legal system, where the prevailing rule is that forced arbitration provisions are so favored by current law that they’ll be enforced even in situations where 1,000 people out of 1,000 would NEVER have imagined that they would be enforced. The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence of arbitration plays out, once again, as being wildly unfair and counterintuitive. It’s an outrage, but just one of far too many.
This article originally appeared in PublicJustice.net on December 5, 2014. Reprinted with permission. outrageous-forced-arbitration-decision-consumer-has-arbitrate-case-involving-home-invasion-a
About the author: F. Paul Bland, Jr., Executive Director, has been a senior attorney at Public Justice since 1997. As Executive Director, Paul manages and leads a staff of nearly 30 attorneys and other staff, guiding the organization’s litigation docket and other advocacy.
Related Posts:
•June 20, 2013 WORST SUPREME COURT ARBITRATION DECISION EVER
•September 10, 2014 CFPB Forced Arbitration Study To Go Foward As Consumer Survey Approved
•September 20, 2011 Separate and Unequal
•September 30, 2014 Department of Defense Expands Ban on Forced Arbitration for Servicemembers
•September 3, 2014 When merely considering your rights can get you fired! |
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Mon Dec 15, 2014 7:56 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Tom Pabst
December 10 at 8:47pm · Edited ·
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another outrageous example of the american legal system authorized "forced arbitration"!! http://www.todaysworkplace.org/…/outrageous-forced-arbitr…/…
Danny Thomas Wells There seems to be no common sense at all any more. Makes me wonder how judges or arbitrators in this case can go home at night and sleep.
December 11 at 2:19am
Tom Pabst yeah, danny, this "forced arbitration" idea or concept is a subterfuge used by big businesses, primarily, to strip away our civil rights and right to a jury trial "in the fine print" of documents we as busy americans often don't even read.
December 11 at 4:42am ·
John Streby Over 30 years ago, the late lawyer, Bill Hayes, came very close to getting a 30 day suspension from the practice of law for including a compulsory arbitration provision in his fee agreements. How things have changed! To what do you attribute this heightened willingness of courts to enforce this oppressive provisions, Tom? Judicial militancy, large contributions by business and corporate interests to both congressional and state appellate court campaigns, or something else I've missed? The concept of "adhesion contract" seems to have been totally abandoned, too. This is not a good time to be a consumer, and I'm sorry to say that the Democrat party has failed to take up the slack where the Republican party has abandoned the interests of private citizens.
December 11 at 6:02am ·
Tom Pabst John Streby our US Sup Ct said this type of "forced arbitration " agreement was enforceable per the Federal Arbitration statute, which they claimed favored such agreements. whatever the legal rationale, i think it is a subterfuge for big businesses---credit card cos., comcast, cruise lines, etc---to foist these adhesion agreements on unsuspecting consumers whose rights as americans, such as right to a jury trial, right to a real judge, right to appeal, etc, are taken away by the fine print of documents they haven't even read, and really wouldn't be expected to read. the US Sup Ct is not infalible and makes mistakes from time to time, , as when in their 1857 dred scott opinion they proclaimed the law of the land to be "..a black man has no rights that a white man is bound to respect...why, a black man has no more legal rights than that table or chair over there..." stay tuned...
December 11 at 8:31am ·
Tom Pabst this is a great 20 minute video on "forced arbitration" that i would recommend to anyone wanting to protect yourself and your family from this subterfuge/trick that strips us of our civil rights.......http://www.youtube.com/embed/tgC3N802Sjk
Lost in the Fine Print (HD)
In our democracy, the courts hold out the promise of safeguarding everyone, regardless of wealth and...
youtube.com
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December 11 at 11:26am ·.. |
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Mon Dec 15, 2014 7:59 am |
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