This Is What Happens When You Have A Right-Wingnut Supreme Court.

[jayfish]

Everyone remember this brilliant decision?

Supreme Court: AT&T can force arbitration, block class-action suits

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that AT&T—and indeed, any company—could block class-action suits arising from disputes with customers and instead force those customers into binding arbitration. The ruling reverses previous lower-court decisions that classified stipulations in AT&T's service contract which barred class arbitration as "unconscionable."

The particular case at hand, AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, stemmed from a California couple (the Concepcions) that had been charged sales tax on mobile phones that AT&T had advertised as "free." The couple believed the charges were unfair and constituted false advertising and fraud on the part of AT&T. They filed a lawsuit against AT&T, which was later promoted to class-action status. AT&T attempted to have the case dismissed on the grounds that its service contract requires individual arbitration and bars "any purported class or representative proceeding."

AT&T and others have similarly tried to have class-action cases dismissed on these grounds, though state supreme courts in both California and Washington have held that contractual waivers for class arbitration or litigation are "unconscionable" and therefore void based on those states' consumer protection laws. Using this reasoning, courts have allowed class-action lawsuits to proceed despite the contractual requirement for individual arbitration.

Well, here's the end-result:

Mandatory PS3 update removes right to join in a class-action lawsuit

Sony has been hit with a number of class-action lawsuits since the launch of the PlayStation 3, mostly due to the decision to retroactively remove Linux support from the console and losing the data of users due to questionable security practices. Sony has another solution to this problem beyond beefing up security (and it's not retaining the features you paid for): if you accept the next mandatory system update, you sign away your ability to take part in a class-action lawsuit. The only option left for consumers if they agree is binding individual arbitration.

The Examiner caught the fine print in the latest system update, which states:

ANY DISPUTE RESOLUTION PROCEEDINGS, WHETHER IN ARBITRATION OR COURT, WILL BE CONDUCTED ONLY ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS AND NOT IN A CLASS OR REPRESENTATIVE ACTION OR AS A NAMED OR UNNAMED MEMBER IN A CLASS, CONSOLIDATED, REPRESENTATIVE OR PRIVATE ATTORNEY GENERAL LEGAL ACTION, UNLESS BOTH YOU AND THE SONY ENTITY WITH WHICH YOU HAVE A DISPUTE SPECIFICALLY AGREE TO DO SO IN WRITING FOLLOWING INITIATION OF THE ARBITRATION. THIS PROVISION DOES NOT PRECLUDE YOUR PARTICIPATION AS A MEMBER IN A CLASS ACTION FILED ON OR BEFORE AUGUST 20, 2011.

So, in a nutshell, in order for your product to continue to operate the same as the day you bought it you have to agree to waive your rights. You may be thinking, "but it's only a video game system". Don't fool yourself. This will become ubiquitous. Smartphone phone battery caught your house on fire and you want to join a class-action against the mfg.? Poor programming allowed criminals to steal your credit card data and you feel like suing? Too bad, that last update you were forced to install took away that right. This is what happens when ideology trumps the law. This is what happens when corporations are people too. ...and it's not pretty.

FSH

[Major Hogwash]

1. Boehner says that we don't need a Consumer Protection Department

Because we should always trust the corporations, because, you know, they're people too.

[Ikonoklast]

4. Until a member of his family dies in a horrible, flaming vehicle accident

caused by a defect known by the manufacturer.


Then, it's "Republican Lawyer Up Time"; hire the absolute best, money is not an object.


Only the Little People never need protection from corporations, because they are not important in any way.

[saras]

6. I'll trust corporations as soon as I can kill them and make it look like an accident...

[Enthusiast]

9. Those corporations are benevolent people.

The rest of us are moving toward soylent green.

[demosincebirth]

2. ...and to those who say there is no different between the political parties.

[malaise]

3. Isn't it amazing that the more rights and freedoms given to corporations

the less the economy works.
Many of the Supremes should be in prison for treason since that 2000 coup.

[Initech]

7. I so agree. America is no longer about the people as it is the corporate motherfuckers.

:grr:

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. kick

[MrNJ]

8. The only thing that surprises me

is that Sony didn't have that "no class action" clause before.

Horrible decision by the S.Ct. Clear violation of Article 3 of the Constitution.

[ladywnch]

10. so basically, we now want to clog up the already over-taxed court

system with individual suits. hmmm.... I thought class actions suits were created to deal with large groups of people with the same complaint against an single entity.

so this is really an attack on the public judiciary system.....break it so the 'little people' will have no recourse......plaintives will expire well before their cases are ever heard.

They've pretty much killed the legislative branch and the executive branch, now they've come to kill off the judicial system........LONG LIVE the UNITED CORPORATIONS OF AMERICA!

(the renaming will become official after the next Koch bros victory)