U.S. Supreme Court could ban class-action lawsuits (LAT)

[somone]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus-20101105,0,639054.column

It hasn't gotten a lot of press, but a case involving AT&T that goes before the U.S. Supreme Court next week has sweeping ramifications for potentially millions of consumers.

If a majority of the nine justices vote the telecom giant's way, any business that issues a contract to customers — such as for credit cards, cellphones or cable TV — would be able to prevent them from joining class-action lawsuits.

This would take away in such cases arguably the most powerful legal tool available to the little guy, particularly in cases involving relatively small amounts of money. Class-action suits allow plaintiffs to band together in seeking compensation or redress, thus giving substantially more heft to their claims.

The ability to ban class actions would potentially also apply to employment agreements such as union contracts.

Consumer advocates say that without the threat of class-action lawsuits, many businesses would be free to engage in unfair or deceptive practices. Few people would litigate on their own to resolve a case involving, say, a hundred bucks....

[LostInAnomie]

1. Something needs to be done about those bastards on the court.

[tishaLA]

2. This is incredible

and even worse, how did I now know about this until now?

Under Roberts, we are fucked.

[sabrina 1]

3. Would that include the current class action suits

against MERS and the Mortgage lenders? What a coincidence, if that would be the case. They are trying desperately to protect the banks from angry citizens who have had enough of the corruption and joined these suits to try to get some justice from the courts since we know it won't come from Congress, paid as they are to protect their bosses.

[Zhade]

4. Holy fucking shit.

NT!

[aquart]

5. That would be impeachable in my book.

[Kablooie]

7. Impeachment would be analogous to a class action suit so couldn't happen.

[Kablooie]

6. We will be back in Upton Sinclair's Jungle or Dicken's London before long.

Poverty, sickness and people dying in the streets.
That's the world the conservatives want to take us back to.

[Waiting For Everyman]

8. The banks will use this against the foreclosure class actions.

There are several important ones right now. Why am I not surprised at this?

Anytime they break the law, just change it!

If the court does this, it won't be pretty. It'll be pitchfork time.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

10. Here I am!

HCE, with tines and tongue sharpened. It's past time to depose the tyrannical enablers.

[pam4water]

9. Stares in slack jawed horror.

[customerserviceguy]

11. Would it be that much of a loss?

Just about every class action suit I've seen lately involves giving a tiny token sum to each of the injured participants, and megamillions to the law firm that brought the suit, followed by a price raise on existing consumers to cover the costs of it all, and no real change in corporate behavior.

Perhaps we need a different remedy than the class action lawsuit, especially what it's morphed into.