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Let Consumers Sue Companies

nytimes.com

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Re: Let Consumers Sue Companies

#221

Post by baddox »

mikeash wrote: post #79
hedora wrote: post #4

I never understood why binding arbitration was legal for non-negotiated contracts. Also, by reading this you agree all disputes between us will go through an arbitration firm of my choosing.

I don't understand why binding arbitration is legal for anything ever. Having your disputes resolved in court is a fundamental right. Signing away that right in a contract should be impossible, like signing yourself into slavery.

There's no incompatibility with something being a right and someone choosing to not exercise that right. Your argument is similar to arguing that you should not be allowed to speak while under arrested, or that you should be forced to own property.

Re: Let Consumers Sue Companies

#222

Post by QAPereo »

baddox wrote: post #221
mikeash wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why binding arbitration is legal for anything ever. Having your disputes resolved in court is a fundamental right. Signing away that right in a contract should be impossible, like signing yourself into slavery.

There's no incompatibility with something being a right and someone choosing to not exercise that right. Your argument is similar to arguing that you should not be allowed to speak while under arrested, or that you should be forced to own property.

Turn it around and it's just a matter of not allowing anyone else to infringe on your rights to that extent; to go back to his example maybe you do have the right to sign yourself away to slavery, but nobody has the right to take up that contract.

Re: Let Consumers Sue Companies

#223

Post by mikeash »

baddox wrote: post #221
mikeash wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why binding arbitration is legal for anything ever. Having your disputes resolved in court is a fundamental right. Signing away that right in a contract should be impossible, like signing yourself into slavery.

There's no incompatibility with something being a right and someone choosing to not exercise that right. Your argument is similar to arguing that you should not be allowed to speak while under arrested, or that you should be forced to own property.

Choosing not to exercise a right is completely different from giving up a right.

I can choose to speak while under arrest, but I cannot give up my right to silence. I can choose not to own property, but I cannot give up my right to own it.

Re: Let Consumers Sue Companies

#225

Post by stult »

jerrac wrote: post #216
rayiner wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 free…

Why do you say "Conservatives tend to reject both approaches as an impingement on business freedoms."? I really do want to know what you are basing your beliefs about Conservatives on. I, and the circles I've been in, would not necessarily do that. We would reject regulations that are too strict (which, lately, most environmental regulations have been). We would also reject the Federal Government being involved, sinc…

Well this is pretty much exactly what I meant when I said our political discourse is "childishly uninformed." You claim that environmental remedies should be worked out between factories and local residents. Disregarding the absurd implication that factories are the only or even the most important polluters, the only mechanism by which local residents can directly negotiate enforceable restrictions on factories is litigation. So you have unknowingly parroted the talking point you claim conservatives don't believe. You've just swallowed the misleading political messaging whole without realizing what it was euphemistically disguising.

Failing direct negotiation you say states and localities should enact regulations where state boundaries aren't crossed. Essentially no environmental regulations deal with things that do not cross state boundaries. Water and air don't respect lines on a map. Nor do ecosystems.

Worse yet, that isn't even really your position. You say "most" environmental regulations are too strict. So you actually don't think states and localities should regulate the environment. You think we should remove federal regulations and states should not replace them. So really you are parroting the exact positions we have described above without recognizing their true import.

Re: Let Consumers Sue Companies

#226

Post by virmundi »

jacquesm wrote: post #155
forapurpose wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Consumers are doing fine. By what measure?

Consumer satisfaction indices are published with some regularity, the United States is usually somewhere between the 20th and the 30th position of such rankings. Now obviously the United States is huge and there is huge diversity between the various demographics and localities but it is beyond dispute that consumers in Europe are doing fine (and that consumers in the United States are not doing much worse on average)…

Does anyone know of a resource that aggregates the EU stats to compare US be the EU?

Re: Let Consumers Sue Companies

#227

Post by alphaalpha101 »

jacquesm wrote: post #155
forapurpose wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Consumers are doing fine. By what measure?

Consumer satisfaction indices are published with some regularity, the United States is usually somewhere between the 20th and the 30th position of such rankings. Now obviously the United States is huge and there is huge diversity between the various demographics and localities but it is beyond dispute that consumers in Europe are doing fine (and that consumers in the United States are not doing much worse on average)…

The EU as a whole is arguably much more diverse than the US as a whole, though. The 'oh the US is most diverse evar!' narrative is just American exceptionalism IMO.

Re: Let Consumers Sue Companies

#228

Post by khedoros1 »

jacquesm wrote: post #180
mikeash wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what that google link is supposed to demonstrate. Is there something in the results showing that people's insurance doesn't protect them?

I don't know what people being insured or not has to do with the fact that people will sue for whiplash claims (even when they don't actually have whiplash) in order to extract some $ from the system, enriching a bunch of lawyers in the process. For all you know the guy was illegally in the United States, it still doesn't matter. In Europe the most likely response to such a minimal accident would be two parties getti…

> In Europe the most likely response to such a minimal accident would be two parties getting out of their car, assessing the damage - if any - filling out a form and getting on with their day after taking some pictures and shaking hands.

I've been in 3 (minor) accidents in the U.S., and they've all basically ended that way.

- I rear-ended a pickup truck. He had his back gate down, and didn't suffer any damage. He shrugged and drove off.

- A private security patrol car rear-ended me. We took pictures of each other's license and insurance. I filed a claim with my insurance, and their insurance paid the claim.

- A semi/lorry made an illegal turn and hit me. The driver wasn't afraid of a lawsuit, but that he'd lose points on his driver's license and have it revoked. We traded license+insurance information and left.

25 years ago, my mother was in 2 major accidents within a month (neither were her fault). She still suffers from those injuries, but she never filed suit.

I'd have to say that "the most likely response" in the U.S. is probably similar to that in Europe, but the best case is no better in the US, and the worst case is much worse.

Re: Let Consumers Sue Companies

#229

Post by jopsen »

forapurpose wrote: post #152
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 ... efficient I don't think anyone who has been involved in litigation would use these words in the same sentence, or paragraph. Whose theory says it's efficient?

It was certainly an interesting argument :)

I suspect that the thinking is that it's efficient in the sense that you don't have the wrong regulation. ie. in the sense that wrong regulation is extremely expensive.

And if people was always employing an optimal strategy, then litigation would rarely be needed as the outcome would be predictable. But I guess people aren't optimal :)

Re: Let Consumers Sue Companies

#230

Post by dragonwriter »

jacquesm wrote: post #180
mikeash wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what that google link is supposed to demonstrate. Is there something in the results showing that people's insurance doesn't protect them?

I don't know what people being insured or not has to do with the fact that people will sue for whiplash claims (even when they don't actually have whiplash) in order to extract some $ from the system, enriching a bunch of lawyers in the process. For all you know the guy was illegally in the United States, it still doesn't matter. In Europe the most likely response to such a minimal accident would be two parties getti…

> In Europe the most likely response to such a minimal accident would be two parties getting out of their car, assessing the damage - if any - filling out a form and getting on with their day after taking some pictures and shaking hands.

Also in the US. Even when whiplash and compensation for it becomes involved. Like, by far the vast majority of minor accidents go this way.

> Nobody would even think of being sued, misfortune in Europe rarely leads to some kind of civil lawsuit here

It only very rarely leads to civil lawsuits in the US, too.

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