Monday, April 01, 2013

Jim Hightower: Corporate Kangaroo Courts Supplant Our Seventh Amendment Rights

Corporate Kangaroo Courts Supplant Our Seventh Amendment Rights:

Jim Hightower on mandatory arbitration agreements inserted in consumer contracts:

"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."
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American judges are indoctrinated to believe in the sanctity of "contract" even when there was no negotiation and the party that had all the power wrote an unchangeable "take it or leave it" agreement that contained an arbitration clause, and imposed it on the consumer.  The Seventh Amendment guarantees the right to jury trial in civil matters. May as well not have it, given the way contracts are being used to strip it away.

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