General Mills Retracts "No Right to Sue" EULA Clause 88
Just a few days after General Mills changed its policies to declare that people who so much as "liked" their page on Facebook thereby waived their right to sue the company in favor of arbitration, the company has reversed itself:
"The announcement resulted in huge backlash on social media, as well as from consumer groups. Legal experts expressed doubts it could ever be enforced. Hamline Law Professor David Schultz appeared on WCCO Sunday Morning.
“When I first saw this earlier this week I said this is questionable at best from a legal point of view,” he said. “From a marketing point of view, it’s a dumb idea, too, but legally it didn’t rest on very sound grounds so it’s not a surprise that they are reversing it. The lawyers at General Mills should have known better.”
Joke about lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
Here is a typical joke about lawyers in the United States: There was a terrible tragedy. A van carrying 5 lawyers went over a cliff. What was the tragedy? There was room for 1 more lawyer.
The common underlying feeling is that the legal profession in the U.S. is often out of control.
This is interesting: What country in the world has most lawyers per capita? [answers.com] Answer: The United States. There is one lawyer for every 265 Americans.
Re:Joke about lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
Or the most probable. 4 - the lawyer is a incredibly evil asshole.
Honestly any, ANY lawyer that pulls that arbitration shit needs to be beaten badly with a sack of doorknobs. Only the most evil scumbags on the planet will try to circumvent legal rights of their own customers.
Caught red handed (Score:3, Interesting)
What they mean is: the lawyers should have written it more obscurely so they didnt get caught
"Mis-characterized"? Seriously? (Score:4, Interesting)
I find it amusing (and useless) that they are now complaining that the language was "mis-characterized" The language was quite clear, as far as legalese goes.
If anything, the media has been too easy on them, calling the language "routine" in other industries and stating that the only difference is General Mills is first packaged foods company to try mandatory arbitration clauses. This language isn't routine at all! I don't know any other company that forces you to accept a mandatory arbitration clause where interacting with the website magically prevents you from suing them over something about a product you bought in a store. If the clause just applied to the website itself, it would be routine; but trying to apply it to all other interactions with the company? I don't think so.
The initial change was stupid and tone-deaf, but they are now "doubling-down" and trying to pretend it doesn't mean exactly what it said. The sad part is, even if nobody believes this corporate double-speak, instead of agitating to have the ridiculous arbitration laws changed, people will just shrug their shoulders and ignore the problem some more.
Corporate death penalty? (Score:5, Interesting)
Then treat them like one.
Oh, X corporation is responsible for the deaths of X people? Looks like a serial killer to me, execute the corporation.
Okay, I have often heard this call for a corporate death penalty. However, how do you envision this would work? Despite the twisted perspective of the courts, corporations are nothing more than the real, human people who own them and work for them.
If punishment is due, then who should it be incident upon? The stockholders, like your local firefighters' pension fund who owns many shares of this condemned corporation? No? Well, shall it be broken up and sold off instead? Fine, the current owners will form a new shell corporation to asset strip the condemned corporation by buying its assets cheaply and leaving the debts behind in the "executed" corporation. Congratulations, the wealthy owners got richer as a consequence of the "punishment". Shall the corporation be taken over by the government and the owners forfeit the shares? Now the government has a moral hazard... all those profitable corporations look mighty guilty of "crimes" if we are debating having to raise unpopular taxes.
I say hold the executives responsible for what their underlings do, and don't allow plausible deniability to be claimed by execs who should know what is happening. We can't legislate morality into sociopaths, but we *can* make them fear incarceration for wrongdoing. *That* would go a long way toward increasing ethical action by corporations. Of course, it will never happen, but at least the incentives are aligned to punish those who are responsible with this proposal, whereas the corporate death penalty invariably would punish the hapless "little guy" shareholders (i.e. the wealthy would circumvent the effects).