6 ms·

Congress, not the supreme court, passed a law favoring arbitration clauses in consumer contracts.

• rendaw 2y ago
  According to this, the supreme court ruled in favor of forced arbitration: https://www.aclu.org/news/womens-rights/supreme-court-favors-forced-arbitration-expense-workers https://www.aclu.org/news/womens-rights/supreme-court-favors... Do you have more details?
  • throwaway48476 2y ago
    If congress passed a law saying arbitration was illegal the court would have to abide by it. The court has only gotten more power because of a dysfunctional and gridlocked congress.
• eadler 2y ago
  The Court, not Congress, favoured arbitration over court in consumer contracts. Arbitration, when passed, was designed for contract disputes between merchants, not statutory claims or between entities of unequal bargaining power. In fact members of Congress expressly disavowed touching either consumer or employment contracts - and even went so far as to make that explicit with respect to employment.
  • wbl 2y ago
    Then why did congress pass https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/9/2 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/9/2 which doesn't exclude any of the things you claim were excluded?
    • eadler 2y ago
      "but nothing herein contained shall apply to contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers ...." was specifically intended to exclude all employment contract. It was the Court, in Circuit City v. Adams, incorrectly, claimed that ejusdem generis applied here. Please see for further details: Sternlight, J. R. (2005). Creeping Mandatory Arbitration: Is It Just? Scholarly Works, 57(280), 1631–1676. pp 1631 Cain, R. M. (1988). Commercial Disputes and Compulsory Arbitration. The Business Lawyer, pp 65 Cohen, J. H., & Dayton, K. (1926). The New Federal Arbitration Law. Virginia Law Review, 12(4), 265–286. https://doi.org/10.2307/1065471 https://doi.org/10.2307/1065471 pp 265 Stone, K. V. W. (2018). Rustic Justice: Community and Coercion under the Federal Arbitration Act [Preprint]. LawArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31228/osf.io/6g7e3 https://doi.org/10.31228/osf.io/6g7e3 §IV.F pp 987-991 For all references: https://arbitrationinformation.org/docs/references/ https://arbitrationinformation.org/docs/references/
      • wbl 2y ago
        Congress could have said "shall apply to contracts of employment." Because they listed some specific then the general, the Court said that we don't read the general to expand beyond the specific examples much. Congress can of course pass a law if the court got it wrong to clarify the construction.
        • eadler 2y ago
          You're correctly understanding the mistake the court made. The principle does not normally apply in this context under ordinary rules of statutory interpretation. I even gave you a source from the author of the law itself. You are correct that congress can fix the issue. Due to deadlock and a lack of care they have not.
        • watwut 2y ago
          Supreme court using congress dysfunction to change the laws how they want is still supreme court being wrong and causing harm. It is congress fault they are gridlocked, it is supreme court who is actively doing something wrong.
      • leereeves 2y ago
        It's dishonest to use an ellipsis to change the meaning of a text. The full quote is: "nothing herein contained shall apply to contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce." That exception does not apply to all workers. In Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams (2001), the SC found that it only applies to transportation workers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_City_Stores,_Inc._v._Adams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_City_Stores,_Inc._v._A...
        • eadler 2y ago
          I used the ellipse for emphasis rather than dishonesty. The full quote was above. (If HN supported formatting I'd perhaps have used bold instead of ellipse+elision.) And yes. I read the full text of Circuit City including every footnote. I've also read multiple analysis of the opinion by different scholars. I've also read multiple articles by the original author of the text as well as transcripts of the Congressional debate at the time it passed. The reasoning for specifically mentioning transportation workers is that there are separate statues for arbitration or worker-contract for those workers and Congress did not want to conflict. Circuit City was an error.
• watwut 2y ago
  Yeah, but supreme court is modifying, twisting and reinterpreting those laws based on their own political agendas. Which in this case happens to be pro-arbitration.