HomeLatest NewsFeatured HomebuildersHome Buyer ResourcesBinding ArbitrationResource LinksSubmit ComplaintsView ComplaintsTake Action 101!Report Mortgage FraudMortgage Fraud NewsForeclosure NewsConstruction DefectsHome DefectsPhoto GalleryFoundation ProblemsHomeowner Website LinksHOA Reform
Main Menu
Home
Latest News
Featured Homebuilders
Home Buyer Resources
Binding Arbitration
Resource Links
Submit Complaints
View Complaints
Take Action 101!
Report Mortgage Fraud
Mortgage Fraud News
Foreclosure News
Construction Defects
Home Defects
Photo Gallery
Foundation Problems
Homeowner Website Links
HOA Reform
Featured Topics
Builder Death Spiral
Report Mortgage Fraud
Foreclosure Special Report
Mold & New Home Guide
Special News Reports
Centex & Habitability
How Fast Can They Build Them?
TRCC Editorial
Texas TRCC Scandal
Texas Watch - Tell Lawmakers
TRCC Recommendations
Sandra Bullock
People's Lawyer
Prevent Nightmare Homes
Choice Homes
Smart Money
Weekly Update Message
HOBB Archives
About HOBB
Contact Us
Fair Use Notice
Legislative Work
Your House

 HOBB News Alerts
and Updates

Click Here to Subscribe

Support HOBB - Become a Sustaining Member
Who's Online
ABC Special Report
Investigation: New Home Heartbreak
Trump - NAHB Homebuilders Shoddy Construction and Forced Arbitration

Organizing your community to bring public attention to builder’s bad deeds and seeking assistance from local, state and federal elected officials has proven to be more effective and much quicker for thousands of families. You do have choices and alternatives.  Janet Ahmad

NYTimes Editorial: Binding Arbitration, Court’s favoring powerful corporations
Sunday, 23 June 2013

Another Blow to Class Action
This week, the Supreme Court continued its aggressive effort to favor corporations
 by forcing customers to raise grievances through individual arbitration rather than a class action or some other joint legal challenge...The decision makes it very hard, if not impossible, to stop bad corporate practices because the potential award for an individual would be too small to justify a suit.

New York Times Editorial
Another Blow to Class Action
By 
This week, the Supreme Court continued its aggressive effort to favor corporations by forcing customers to raise grievances through individual arbitration rather than a class action or some other joint legal challenge.

In American Express Company v. Italian Colors Restaurant, the court ruled 5 to 3 that a group of merchants could not bring a class action against the company even on antitrust grounds because each had signed a contract that required complaints to be taken to individual arbitration.

The decision makes it very hard, if not impossible, to stop bad corporate practices because the potential award for an individual would be too small to justify a suit.

American Express requires merchants that want to accept its corporate and premium charge cards to also accept American Express credit cards, at a fee that is 30 percent higher than other credit cards’ fees. Italian Colors Restaurant and others claimed that by requiring them to accept the third card the company is subjecting them to a “tying arrangement,” in violation of federal law.

The merchants sought typical damages of $5,000, but it would cost an individual merchant hundreds of thousands of dollars to try to prove an antitrust claim. The arbitration provision in their contracts prohibited them from sharing the cost or from consolidating their claims into one case, so each was left with no way to press a claim.

For the past three decades, the Supreme Court has ruled that individual arbitration is an acceptable way to resolve a dispute only when it gives the challenger a realistic chance of enforcing the claim. But as Justice Elena Kagan explained in her dissenting opinion, there is also a longstanding principle that “when an arbitration agreement prevents the effective vindication of federal rights, a party may go to court.”

The Supreme Court was wrong to bar the class action, asserting that federal law does not guarantee plaintiffs “an affordable procedural path to the vindication of every claim.” By doing so, Justice Kagan said, the majority turns arbitration from a method of resolving disputes into “a foolproof way of killing off valid claims.” The decision is one more example of the court’s favoring powerful corporations over small businesses and individuals.

 
< Prev   Next >
Search HOBB.org

Reckless Endangerment
BY: GRETCHEN MORGENSON
and JOSHUA ROSNER

Outsized Ambition, Greed and
Corruption Led to
Economic Armageddon


Amazon
Barnes & Noble

NPR Special Report
Part I Listen Now
Perry Home - No Warranty 
Part II Listen Now
Texas Favors Builders

Washington Post
The housing bubble, in four chapters
BusinessWeek Special Reports
Bonfire of the Builders
Homebuilders helped fuel the housing crisis
Housing: That Sinking Feeling

Consumer Affairs Builder Complaints

 TRCC Implosion
 TRCC Shut Down
 Sunset Report

IS YOUR STATE NEXT?
As Goes Texas So Goes the Nation
Knowledge and Financial Responsibility are still Optional for Texas Home Builders

OUTSTANDING FOX4 REPORT
TRCC from Bad to Worse
Case of the Crooked House

TRCC AN ARRESTING EXPERIENCE
The Pat and Bob Egert Building & TRCC Experience 

Build it right the first time
An interview with Janet Ahmad

Bad Binding Arbitration Experience?
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
or call 1-210-402-6800

top of page

© 2024 HomeOwners for Better Building
Joomla! is Free Software released under the GNU/GPL License.