And this is only a small sample of what is currently wrong with our economic system. Take the two main pillars of American law—contracts and torts. For half a century, power lawyers, backed by corporate campaign cash for legislators, have hacked at the roots of the legal protections for shoppers and for wrongfully injured people. Fine print contracts—called “mice print” by Senator Elizabeth Warren—block consumers from going to court and mandate compulsory arbitration. Other fine print lets the vendors change the contract any time without getting specific consent of the buyers. Internet fine print amounts to simply “clicking” and being instantly bound by a matrix of contract peonage. This victory for corporate lawyers is a defeat for the American people who lose their freedom of contract—a servitude that should arouse conservatives and liberals alike. And, the other freedom to have safe products, services and environments is stripped away by “tort deform,” euphemistically called tort reform by the insurance lobby and its corporate clients. Tort law is supposed to award adequate compensation for negligently or intentionally inflicted injuries upon innocent people. Shrinking by the decade in favor of the wrongdoers, tort law has been twisted to block the courtroom door for the most vulnerable of our population.
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 21:23:40 +0000
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