Now that is really something I’d love to see made illegal as hell. How can it even be a contract if they can alter it whenever they feel like?
They put a clause in the original contract saying that they can modify it. Some contracts they’ll require themselves to give you notice. Others are we can change anything at anytime. That’s part of what the whole PS3 debacle is about.
Aren’t they required to let you out of the contract? I know there’s got to be all kinds of existing laws against unilateral contract changes.
“Clickwrap” is a relatively new area of contract law (referring to click-through agreements like EULAs).
Both parties to a contract have to agree to modification. However, in the case of contracts like these that nobody actually reads, assent to the original contract terms is essentially implied, as is assent to modification.
You are assumed to have agreed to the modification unless you affirmatively reject it within a reasonable time. So you can call AT&T after reading the updated EULA and say, “that’s bullshit, I want out”, but nobody ever does, because nobody read it in the first place anyway.
There is only one winner in this decision. In a class action suit, a cheated or damaged consumer could get something. The lawyers of course often made millions.
But now the corporation that harms or cheats can get away with it. The bad company is the winner. A fair company will get blackened by the actions of the cheaters.
While I agree going to court over $50 is, on the surface, silly, I’m troubled that the SCOTUS appearantly wants the American consumer to bend over and grab our collective ankles. Now that businesses see they have carte blanche to screw us, they will only find more creative and greedy ways to do so, and this decision leaves the American people with no recourse.
Why do you say that SCOTUS wants the American consumer to bend over and grab its collective ankles, and not that Congress wants the American consumer to bend over and grab its collective ankles?
In our system, the Supreme Court’s job is to INTERPRET the law. It falls to Congress to actually create the law.
And Congress did: they created the Federal Arbitration Act. It contains the provision you object to.
So why do you criticize the Supreme Court for this problem? They did their job – they read what Congress wrote. It sure seems like your beef would be with Congress, but for some reason, you seem to believe that the Supreme COurt should have undone what Congress did. Why?
Thanks to the network of fractal state lines that extend between every customer and every salesman, dontcha know…
did anybody actually read the case? It involved paying tax on free merchandise. It should never have gone to court in the first place.
What are you talking about?
from the second post.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=000&invol=09-893
No, I mean why does it matter that it was about having to pay taxes on free merchandise? The whole reason it did go to court is because the plaintiffs challenged the enforceability of the arbitration clause.
OK, gotcha.
From a legal standpoint, a corporation cannot write off it’s legal responsibility in a contract. IANAL but I got that much out of the law classes I took in college. If there was a class actionable reason to go to court then I suspect it would have moved forward. This is not. If people think they don’t have to pay taxes on “free stuff”, that is not the company’s fault. It’s not false advertisement if tax liability is not explained in a transaction.
I’m guessing, without plowing through the legaleze, that this is why binding arbitration was allowed in this instance.
I don’t understand your argument. Do you mean to heap scorn upon the idea that this is a matter of interstate commerce?
If so, please remind me where you stand on Congress’ authority to enact the health care legislation. I don’t remember your commenting on fractal state lines when discussing that, but perhaps I missed it.
From the perspective of the Court’s actual reasoning, you are wrong, because the content of the claim was irrelevant to the Court’s holding.
From the perspective of human nature, however, you have a not insignificant point.
These were pretty weak facts. To the extent any justices may have been on the fence, they probably weren’t compelled by the plight of these poor consumers who had to pay tax on their free phone.
You’re probably right that Congress is more at fault here. My frustration, I guess, is that they had the power to invalidate a poor law, and like the campaign financing cass last year, decided that people with a more imprtant than those without , though I admit we should stop being surprised by this development by now.
Bit cheeky to ask if anyone else actually read the opinion, then, isn’t it?
Although as RP notes this wasn’t exactly a claim of earthshaking consequence, the opinion is devoid of actual admissions that the justices ruled in favor of the arbitration clause because they thought the plaintiffs were wasting everyones’ time.
It seems Justice Breyer agrees with you. He says the court decision misinterpreted the law. He believes the 1925 law allows arbitration and class action to co-exist. He says class action not only is consistent with the law but furthers the objectives the law had in mind when it was written.
Three branches of government, separate but equal yet you seem to be calling for the courts to be a rubber stamp on what Congress writes into law.
Two lower courts and four Supreme Court justices felt, based on the law as written, that the Class Action should be allowed. They were doing precisely what you said they should do…they interpreted the law.
The court, not Congress, in this case is asking the populace to “bend over and grab its collective ankles.” The FAA allowed for arbitration rules to be unenforceable if law provided for revocation of the contract.
In California they had written laws regarding this:
Seems pretty reasonable to me. Not a court making up new rules but applying the law to the rules as written.
Apparently you think allowing corporations to remove avenues for you to pursue a dispute with them is conscionable.
I don’t and neither did two lower courts and four SCOTUS judges. The majority wins of course but there is, obviously, a decent legal argument to be made on the other side as well.
That leaves us with the SCOTUS once again screwing the public.
Whack-a-Mole:
Where do you think the Discover Bank rule came from?
(A) The California legislature
(B) The California courts
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