Senators Al Franken, Richard Blumenthal and Cong.Hank Johnson file the Arbitration Fairness Act 2011

Pre-dispute Binding Mandatory Arbitration (BMA), also called Forced Arbitration, is an insidious way for employers and companies to evade accountability to clients, employees, and consumers.  It's a practice, which traps people into waiving their rights to sue, participate in a class-action lawsuit, or to appeal an unfair ruling.

Lender Can’t Ban Class Actions and Deny Customers Their Day in Court
“We’re extremely pleased that the Court of Appeal saw through McKenzie’s attempt to use its fine print contract to give it immunity from the state’s consumer protection laws,” said Public Justice Senior Attorney Paul Bland, who argued the appeal.  “The court sent a clear message today that consumers can’t be robbed of their day in court by a sentence buried within an arbitration clause that prohibits class actions in cases where that’s the only way for consumers to obtain any remedy.” 

Legal documentary "Hot Coffee" a provocative brew
Like many excellent documentaries, "Hot Coffee" is more a visual editorial rather than an all-encompassing and comprehensive distillation of a subject matter, in this case, our tort system. Essentially, it will play to standing ovations with the Trial Lawyers Assn., but be deplored by corporations and such entities as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Such is the direct force of its message.

MoDOT wants day in court on highway lawsuits
The Missouri Department of Transportation wants its day in court when it is sued over injuries or deaths blamed on defects in state roads. The highway agency contends it is paying out millions of dollars more than necessary because of arbitration rulings against it. So the department wants to be able to take its chances before a judge and jury. Legislation considered by a Senate committee this past week would repeal a 1999 law that allows plaintiffs to decide whether to submit their cases to binding arbitration instead of a jury. The bill would require lawsuits to go to arbitration only if the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission agreed to it.

The Arbitration War
Unexpected wireless charges are a chronic affliction of life on the grid. The industry triggers more complaints from consumers than any other. AT&T Mobility, by consumer rankings, is the worst. Its performance in a case the Supreme Court heard recently has done nothing to improve that reputation...The Ninth Circuit said this “artifice” has “the practical effect of rendering” AT&T “immune from individual claims.” AT&T’s arbitration clause is unconscionable. The Supreme Court should say so.

Justices Question Contracts That Block Class Actions
The Supreme Court seemed disinclined to let companies use legal fine print to block class actions, with several justices suggesting they might defer to state courts that ruled in favor of consumers. An AT&T Inc. unit tried to prohibit class actions with arbitration clauses in the contracts it imposes on mobile-phone customers. But courts in California ruled the provision unenforceable..."scheme to deliberately cheat large numbers of consumers out of individually small sums of money," a clause prohibiting class actions was unconscionable because it left consumers with no practical remedy

Major U.S. Banks Investigated For Foreclosure Fraud
With well over a million homes being repossessed, 2010 is shaping up to be a record year for foreclosures in the U.S. But there are serious questions about the way many have been carried out, and now prosecutors are investigating whether some of the country's largest banks committed fraud.

Wall Street Plays Dr. Jekyll to Avoid Court
When duped investors set out to make themselves whole after a fleecing by a broker, the American way is to hustle them off to a private court run by Wall Street. It’s a tradition that was set in stone when the Supreme Court in 1987 said that, if an investor signed an agreement to arbitrate, the sorry loser is out of luck if he ever wants a day in court... In spite of the obvious advantage Wall Street gets by having one of its own on dispute panels, there are political reasons that industry types might actually support Finra’s proposal: forces that are threatening mandatory arbitration altogether. The Dodd-Frank Act has the SEC looking into whether arbitration contracts are in the public interest; the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2009 had raised questions on the issue even before Dodd-Frank passed.

Blind arbitration: A system that ignores reality in setting public worker contracts must change
Just in time for the new school year: the confounding math of binding arbitration, where two plus two equals … whatever an arbitrator says it equals — and taxpayers must make up the difference.  Why are New Jersey taxpayers suffocating? Binding arbitration is Exhibit A. Arbitrators are supposed to weigh taxpayers’ ability to pay, but often don’t. It’s a rigged game, and should be scrapped.