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Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice

nytimes.com

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Re: Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice

#81

Post by fineman »

nickff wrote: post #51
makecheck wrote: post #13

It's not just the length of the initial contract, it's the lack of a sane "diff" system. Even if someone is willing and able to read a 44 page contract the first time, the next time version 1.0.1 of something comes out you are generally given a 44.5 page contract to re-agree to. "Somewhere" in there, they changed something; good luck figuring it out. So even if the version you read gave you permission to sue, the ame…

What if arbitration clauses are not a problem at all? There is a great deal of contradictory evidence with respect to whether arbitration is more or less favorable to consumers and employees (though it is definitely very bad for class-action lawyers). But even if we assume for the purpose of argument that consumers always lose disputes which are arbitrated, they may be willing to make that trade in exchange for reduc…

Mandatory arbitration is great for you - that why I'm insisting it's in the contact!

Honestly!

Re: Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice

#82

Post by fineman »

Zigurd wrote: post #68
ksk wrote: post #30

It should be illegal to "sign away" legal protections that you're afforded under the law.

It probably should not be uniformly illegal. For example, settling a lawsuit generally involves promising not to sue. Perhaps such agreements need to be supervised, which would take them out of the domain of "click-through" contracts.

That's not even an important requirement though. If you settle a lawsuit and then sue anyways the judge can look at the original issue and the aftermath and choose to throw it out as you have been compensated at that point.

Re: Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice

#83

Post by fineman »

pcl wrote: post #32
ipsin wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard of that. Can you provide one example of a company that allows you to opt out of binding arbitration?

The article mentions this towards the end, but dismisses their utility. I wonder when the opt-out period begins -- on acceptance of the contract, presumably. While many companies also include an opt-out provision on arbitration — typically between 30 and 45 days — few consumers take advantage of it because they do not realize they have signed a clause to begin with, or do not understand its consequences, according to…

Funny, and I thought contracts required a meeting of the minds. How does that happen when one party knows the other has misinterpreted the contract?

Re: Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice

#84

Post by ctide »

lobster_johnson wrote: post #71
djcapelis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get to have this experience with one of my banks. And all I need to do to stay updated with the terms is click watch on the github repo. It's the way things should be. https://github.com/SimpleFinance/policies

Simple looks incredible. Is it as great as it looks?

It depends. I tried to switch to Simple, but at the time I was working as an independent contractor. The maximum size of a check you can deposit without mailing it to them is $3k. Having to mail in every check I received was a hassle that outweighed any benefits Simple provided over a regular bank account.

Re: Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice

#85

Post by bickfordb »

I think it would be much better to make these obligatory consumer and employee contracts unenforceable to begin with instead of trying to fix this arbitration issue. They are predatory and exist only to protect the interest of these corporations. Everyday life shouldn't be a legal negotiation.

Re: Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice

#86

Post by pcl »

morninj wrote: post #76
pcl wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems feasible to do as a Chrome plugin.

How would it work?

Upon defection of a click-through license (probably doable, given the formal language of legal contracts), examine the text for arbitration clause with opt-out text, and pop up a little dialog or sidebar that says "click here to opt out of the arbitration clause". That might require manual identification of how to do so initially, but I could imagine building contract signatures so that the process could be further automated for others.

Re: Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice

#87

Post by nommm-nommm »

marcosdumay wrote: post #73
nickff wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if arbitration clauses are not a problem at all? There is a great deal of contradictory evidence with respect to whether arbitration is more or less favorable to consumers and employees (though it is definitely very bad for class-action lawyers). But even if we assume for the purpose of argument that consumers always lose disputes which are arbitrated, they may be willing to make that trade in exchange for reduc…

Well, no, society can no accept that people wave their basic rights away on a contract, even if those people think it's a good deal. Slavery waits on the end of this route.

Shady landlords try this all the time.

Re: Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice

#88

Post by micwawa »

Quanticles wrote: post #22
matheweis wrote: post #2

I suspect the fine print will eventually be outlawed for use on the average consumer (unless we radically increase the education of the average consumer). It is well established by now that today's average consumer lacks the reading comprehension level required to fully understand these fine print agreements.

There is also an imbalance in negotiating position in these agreements. If every credit card company you deal with says you must agree to arbitration, what leverage do you have to push back on that? There's just not enough competition in the market to push back on each one of the issues raised in these agreements. Either the government needs to create enough competition in the market such that consumers have choice o…

Or some very ambitious consumer advocate needs to step up and form some sort of large scale consumer union. I would be "in."

Re: Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice

#89

Post by micwawa »

Perhaps companies that choose not to do this can market their products with an "100%-arbitration-clause-free!! " slogan somewhere. Then we could hope this catches on.

Corporations are assuming that we don't pay attention to this. It's OK to give an app or a business a 1-star review on the reason that the arbitration clause makes you uncomfortable.

Re: Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice

#90

Post by wanderingstan »

makecheck wrote: post #13

It's not just the length of the initial contract, it's the lack of a sane "diff" system. Even if someone is willing and able to read a 44 page contract the first time, the next time version 1.0.1 of something comes out you are generally given a 44.5 page contract to re-agree to. "Somewhere" in there, they changed something; good luck figuring it out. So even if the version you read gave you permission to sue, the ame…

And some sort of annotation/comment system for contracts, a la Rap Genius.
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