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Let Consumers Sue Companies

nytimes.com

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Re: Let Consumers Sue Companies

#121

Post by jerrac »

stult wrote: post #113
ThomPete wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn't be down voted for this even though you are wrong. The EU system is very pro-consumer and is doing a lot of things to make life easier for consumers ditching roaming is just one of them. With regards to lawsuits the EU system takes the need out of much of that by having fairly strict rules for corporations and giving consumers much more legal backing when it comes to the return of goods, protection from…

In academic US legal theory, litigation is frequently portrayed as an efficient substitute for regulation, particularly from a libertarian perspective. Our political narratives also tend to reject regulation as government overreach or unconstitutional when carried out at the federal level. So we ended up with a highly litigious system, which (unsurprisingly) resulted in high litigation costs. Corporations have respon…

> ... litigation is frequently portrayed as an efficient substitute for regulation ...

Can you source, or explain, this? I'm Conservative, and in all the Conservative circles I've run in, I can't recall ever hearing something like this.

In fact, I usually hear more about how ridiculous it is that everyone sues about everything.

Re: Let Consumers Sue Companies

#122

Post by jemaddux »

wimgz wrote: post #14

“only a lunatic or a fanatic sues for $30.” A bit off topic here but this is IMHO a great challenge for AI: making a lawyer affordable for the masses when they are bullied by banks, airlines, etc. If it costs you $5 , why not sue for $30 ?

Those are just the costs for you to sue ($5) and potentially what the company will lose ($30). You need to factor in that bringing a court case costs the taxpayer some amount of money as well which is presumably more than $35 to hear the case.

The usual way to deal with a $30 fee that wasn't valid in my experience is request a chargeback on your credit card and dare the company to come get it from you. That works often enough that court isn't really necessary IMO.

Re: Let Consumers Sue Companies

#123

Post by jacquesm »

odabaxok wrote: post #102
kogepathic wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EU system seems to be very anti-consumer. I disagree. It is true that it is harder for EU consumers to sue a corporation, but in general I feel that consumer rights are generally stronger in the EU than in North America (OP's point about consumer watchdogs), so there is less reason for an EU consumer to sue a corporation. IANAL, but I'd say the EU system is anti-litigious, not anti-consumer.

> I feel that consumer rights are generally stronger in the EU than in North America I agree with this, I feel the same. However, it seems to me, that if there is a customer related problem already in place, US will find it and react to it faster. To put an example here, all of the major automotive recalls of the last few years were exposed in the US, while Europe reacted to them with a delay (Volkswagen diesels, Tak…

The VW scandal is a bad example. They broke the law, but consumers only lost value in their cars indirectly (and there were some health effects).

Given how extreme the American reaction to the VW scandal was I do wonder what the response would have been if that company had been GM, Ford or Chrysler. A part of me is really happy that the US brought this to light and made VW pay for their transgression, a part of me feels that the asymmetry between the damage VW has done to Americans and the damage that America has done to other countries is so extreme that it feels as though this is simply a cheap trick to extract some $ from VW and to harm their brand relative to US brands.

Even so, stupid on the part of VW and it should have never happened.

Re: Let Consumers Sue Companies

#124

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #101
Sangermaine wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Where the class members are individual consumers, litigation ends up being lawyer-driven. Cases settle for pennies on the dollar of potential damages, and end up serving neither to compensate consumers nor really to deter illegal conduct. You're completely misunderstanding the purpose of class actions, and are using an oft-repeated error. The article itself explains the value of class actions. Class actions are an i…

> Class actions are an ideal instrument for redress of harm where the harm to any individual is small, but the harm is widespread, meaning that a company is cheating or hurting many people but it's not worth any one individual's effort or expense to sue them. If you think of litigation in economic-theoretic terms, yes, that's the purpose of class actions. But while you're in that head space, you also need to consider…

Is this related to the transactional principal-agent problem in things like real estate, where the incentives of the agents are to close transactions as quickly as possible, since optimizing for the quantity of transactions handled is wildly more lucrative than optimizing for the outcome of any one transaction?

Re: Let Consumers Sue Companies

#126

Post by wongarsu »

jacquesm wrote: post #119
stult wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In academic US legal theory, litigation is frequently portrayed as an efficient substitute for regulation, particularly from a libertarian perspective. Our political narratives also tend to reject regulation as government overreach or unconstitutional when carried out at the federal level. So we ended up with a highly litigious system, which (unsurprisingly) resulted in high litigation costs. Corporations have respon…

> Corporations have responded (also unsurprisingly) by trying to reduce their litigation costs. No, they simply pass those costs on to the consumers.

And you are more competitive if you have fewer costs that have to be passed on to the consumers. Just because they can pass it on doesn't mean they don't try to reduce it.

Re: Let Consumers Sue Companies

#127

Post by s73ver_ »

necessity wrote: post #92

Don't do business with companies that have such contracts? If there is no choice in a given sector then the issue is a monopoly not the contracts.

That's not usually a choice, and it's not due to monopoly. Just about every company out there is adding these clauses to their contracts. And consumers have no power to combat them.

Re: Let Consumers Sue Companies

#128

Post by ryanbrunner »

damnfine wrote: post #97
leoharsha2 wrote: post #45

I sued a company where I worked. They were not paying my final dues after I left the company. It took me 1 year and lots of visits to court just to get my final dues. Finally after a year of all such waste of time, they came to me and asked for a settlement to which I agree and I got part of my money. In India, even if you know you will win the case, it is not worth it. It will take your mental peace. Although I high…

If they also had to hire consuel and appear in court, the burden was equally large on them. If everyone sued, the burden would cause change. Acceping things as they are is how you keep things bad.

Except that in the plaintiff's case, he is devoting 100% of his time while court is in session, while the company is devoting a fraction of their resources.

Re: Let Consumers Sue Companies

#129

Post by rayiner »

jerrac wrote: post #121
stult wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In academic US legal theory, litigation is frequently portrayed as an efficient substitute for regulation, particularly from a libertarian perspective. Our political narratives also tend to reject regulation as government overreach or unconstitutional when carried out at the federal level. So we ended up with a highly litigious system, which (unsurprisingly) resulted in high litigation costs. Corporations have respon…

> ... litigation is frequently portrayed as an efficient substitute for regulation ... Can you source, or explain, this? I'm Conservative, and in all the Conservative circles I've run in, I can't recall ever hearing something like this. In fact, I usually hear more about how ridiculous it is that everyone sues about everything.

How do you deal with a negative externality, such as a factory dumping pollutants into the water? Liberals would say: strictly regulate the factory so it limits pollution to an acceptable level. (Statist) libertarians would say that pollution is an infringement of peoples' property rights, and that property owners should sue the polluter. Conservatives tend to reject both approaches as an impingement on business freedoms.

Re: Let Consumers Sue Companies

#130

Post by astrocat »

DannyBee wrote: post #105
Sangermaine wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Where the class members are individual consumers, litigation ends up being lawyer-driven. Cases settle for pennies on the dollar of potential damages, and end up serving neither to compensate consumers nor really to deter illegal conduct. You're completely misunderstanding the purpose of class actions, and are using an oft-repeated error. The article itself explains the value of class actions. Class actions are an i…

"Class actions are an ideal instrument for redress of harm where the harm to any individual is small, but the harm is widespread, meaning that a company is cheating or hurting many people but it's not worth any one individual's effort or expense to sue them." Actually, you are misunderstanding the purpose of class actions. You may see it as s some ideal, but it's not why they were created. They were created to simpli…

>I'd also argue they are not the ideal instrument, as they rarely actually achieve any real gains for the individuals.

I can't say whether or not the process is ideal, but I can say that the benefit to individuals is irrelevant. The COLLECTIVE - the whole society - benefits in a big way when the behavior of a large corporation doing very small harm to thousands or millions of individuals is punished and deterred. The bar for success can't always be directed at individuals; there are very positive societal level benefits that are small to individuals but huge to the whole ecosystem.

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