Justice Ginsburg Hands Surprise Victory To Consumers Over Big Business

[KamaAina]

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/01/20/3741056/justice-ginsburg-hands-surprise-victory-to-consumers-over-big-business/

An effort to gut one of the most important mechanisms the law uses to deter businesses against widespread violations of the law failed on Wednesday, when the Supreme Court handed down its 6-3 decision in Campbell-Ewald v. Gomez. Had the defendants, who were backed by powerful business interest groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable, prevailed in this lawsuit, it would have significantly altered the balance of power between large corporations and their customers and workers.

Campbell-Ewald involved a company that allegedly sent many unsolicited text messages to various cell phone users. Under federal law, someone who receives such a message may recover $500 for each violation of the law. The named plaintiff in this case, Jose Gomez, is a man who received one of the unwanted messages.

This tiny case about an annoying message took on far greater importance, however, because Gomez also sought to bring a class action on behalf of others who also received the unsolicited messages. As ThinkProgress previously explained, class actions are often the only mechanism available against defendants who commit small-scale violations of the law against many different individuals:...

During that interim period, the defendant company offered Gomez $1,500 per unwanted text message that he received — an offer that would effectively buy off Gomez but leave the other class members with nothing. They then claimed that, even if Gomez did not agree to this offer, the lawsuit had to cease. Under Article III of the Constitution, the company argued, a lawsuit must not proceed unless there is an active “case” or “controversy” between two parties. So when the defendant company offered to give Gomez everything he personally could expect to collect under the law, that offer allegedly rendered the case moot because there was no longer a real dispute between the two sides.

Notorious R.B.G.!

[JudyM]

1. That "case or controversy" Constitutional argument is really interesting! Glad RBG didn't buy it.

[Agnosticsherbet]

2. At 6-3, she wasnt' the only Justice that didn't buy it.

A big win.

[rurallib]

5. she wrote the majority opinion. But there are a couple of real surprises in agreement

Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Kagan joined Ginsburg’s opinion, while Justice Clarence Thomas agreed with the result of Ginsburg’s analysis but not her reasoning. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito dissented.

[lpbk2713]

3. Anything the Chamber of Commerce is for is evil by default.

For one thing they oppose feeding homeless people in just about
every community unless the citizens speak out against them.

[saturnsring]

4. oh they tried to use the procedure route -