Corporate Kangaroo Courts Supplant Our Seventh Amendment Rights by Jim Hightower

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/03/27-0

Being wronged by a corporation is painful enough, but just try getting your day in court. Most Americans don't realize it, but our Seventh Amendment right to a fair jury trial against corporate wrongdoers has quietly been stripped from us. Instead, we are now shunted into a stacked-deck game called "Binding Mandatory Arbitration." Proponents of the process hail it as superior to the courts — "faster, cheaper and more efficient!" they exclaim.


But does it deliver justice? It could, for the original concept of voluntary, face-to-face resolution of conflict by a neutral third party makes sense in many cases. But remember what Mae West said of her own virtue: "I used to be Snow White, then I drifted." Today's practice of arbitration has drifted far away from the purity of the concept.

All you really need to know about today's process is that it's the product of years of conceptual monkey-wrenching by corporate lobbyists, Congress, the Supreme Court and hired-gun lobbying firms looking to milk the system for steady profits. First and foremost, these fixers have turned a voluntary process into the exact opposite: mandatory. Let's look at this mess.

— Unlike courts, arbitration is not a public system, but a private business.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

1. Arbitration is ridiculous, but the courts love them.

Basically, it gives them a "free out" and one less case for them to deal with. So an arbitration clause can be blatantly unfair and most courts will still let it stand.

It's favored by employers who use them with their employees. That packet of documents you receive your first day of work that you instinctively just sign blindly--you could be signing your jury trial rights away, as well as signing a stifling restrictive covenant that could restrict your ability to work in the industry if you leave the company.

[lastlib]

2. In most cases, the corporation gets to pick the arbitrator

And they define the limits of what evidence/arguments you can present in relation to what they can present. So you're screwed from the beginning. They have stacked the deck, and they deal the cards.