In Sunday’s New York Times, David Segal, who authors The Haggler column on consumer issues and negotiation, took issue with Concepcion and its fall-out. Segal highlighted the case of a veteran owed a $400 refund under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act on an aborted car lease. The veteran became the lead plaintiff in a class action against Nissan on behalf of similarly situated service members. But because his lease contained an arbitration agreement with a class action waiver, he was out of luck, and so are the many other servicemembers who don’t even know they are entitled to such refunds and would have been members of the class.
Segal’s column breaks no new ground, particularly for readers of this blog, but it does a good job of humanizing the damage Concepcion does and the radical pro-business bias of this Supreme Court. It is the kind of reporting that must happen more if fundamental rights to civil justice are to be restored.
It sounds like Concepcion is going to cause a lot of damage.
Thanks for sharing this link. The article is interesting when it points out that class actions are a way for people to obtain remedies even when they do not know they have a case. While this may be true, it is also true that many times people do not even know that a class action took place and that they have the right to ask for compensation. What bothers me, more than the idea that corporations can ban class actions, is that consumer contracts can contain arbitration clauses and that these clauses will bind consumers, even if we very well know that nobody reads a contract when he buys something.