Coinbase Wins at Supreme Court as Ruling Reinforces Arbitration (bloomberg.com) 65
The US Supreme Court sided with a Coinbase unit in a ruling that reinforces the ability of companies to channel customer and employee disputes into arbitration. From a report: The justices, voting 5-4, ruled that lawsuits filed in federal court must be put on hold while a defendant presses an appeal that would send the case to arbitration. Writing for the court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said allowing district courts to move forward as the appeal is ongoing would reduce the benefits of arbitration. "If the district court could move forward with pre-trial and trial proceedings while the appeal on arbitrability was ongoing, then many of the asserted benefits of arbitration (efficiency, less expense, less intrusive discovery, and the like) would be irretrievably lost," Kavanaugh wrote. Business groups rallied behind Coinbase in the case, saying that letting litigation go forward would impose unnecessary costs. Consumer advocates said judges should have the discretion to decide which claims should proceed during appeal, as courts do with other areas of the law. Coinbase is battling claims by Abraham Bielski, who said the crypto company should compensate him for $31,000 he lost after he gave a scammer remote access to his account. In a second suit that was before the high court, Coinbase is accused of holding a $1.2 million Dogecoin sweepstakes without adequately disclosing that entrants didn't have to buy or sell the cryptocurrency.
SCOTUS is effectively inactive. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:SCOTUS is effectively inactive. (Score:5, Insightful)
These people weren’t picked for their judicial prowess. They were picked to do the bidding of their masters. Mitch McConnell says to stop picking on that poor justice who accepted lavish vacations and then ruled favorably on the same company. https://thehill.com/homenews/s... [thehill.com]
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Much as I hate this partisan Supreme Court (Score:5, Informative)
This is another one of those "change how you vote" cases, where the law is what the law is, and if we don't like it we need to stop voting for pro-corporate goons. That means voting in primary elections, and, let's face it, the Democrat primary elections. I don't think there's anyone who thinks the GOP isn't a lost cause when it comes to being pro-corporate anymore.
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Good luck voting for a Democrat that's not ultimately pro-corporate. Bernie sometimes doesn't support pro-corporate policies. And. . . uh, yeah, nobody else.
Primary logic: Not pro-corporate policies? Unelectable. Next.
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I know it's really hard to make people from the USA believe it, but there are more parties to choose from than just the two identical bought-and-paid-for ones. Yes, even in the USA. There is even a word for having a fair number of parties to choose from: it's called democracy.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Not in America, man. No way, no how. A vote for anything other than the lesser evil of Democrat vs. Republican is automatically considered a vote for the one you hate the most. We've got that drilled into us from the time we start approaching voting age. It's become a near religious level dogma at this point. And, sadly, when you go to the polls and your choice is between somebody like Trump, or somebody like Biden, or throwing away your vote altogether and risking a Trump repeat? You actual
We're winner take all, 1st past the post (Score:3)
My Favorite is Cornel West, who's going around pretending to run while also praising DeSantis.
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... but there are more parties to choose from than just the two identical bought-and-paid-for ones.
Not in the state of Ohio. If a candidate is not a member of "Team Blue" or "Team Red," they're not on the ballot.
Democracy died decades ago.
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The parties aren't identical, and never have been. They may look identical when seen from afar. In the past, one party was distinctly pro-worker and pro-union, while the other was pro-corporate. Today both are more pro-corporate but there are vastly bigger distinctions between them in other areas - one is becoming exceedingy anti-truth for example. If both parties were identical then we would not be trudging down the road towards civil war II.
Two have more than two effective parties you'd need a change in
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Good luck voting for a Democrat that's not ultimately pro-corporate. Bernie sometimes doesn't support pro-corporate policies. And. . . uh, yeah, nobody else.
Primary logic: Not pro-corporate policies? Unelectable. Next.
Not sure that litmus test is worse than any on the Right ...
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Good luck voting for a Democrat that's not ultimately pro-corporate. Bernie sometimes doesn't support pro-corporate policies. And. . . uh, yeah, nobody else.
Primary logic: Not pro-corporate policies? Unelectable. Next.
Not sure that litmus test is worse than any on the Right ...
Our choice now is between unhinged lunatic freak-shows (Republicans) and polite, well spoken, pro-corporate assholes that sometimes say the right things, then do the opposite (Democrats). Though, to be fair, there are a few unhinged lunatics managing to weasel their way in there too.
What a time to be alive!
You could just vote in the Dem primary (Score:3)
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I don't want pro consumer. I want pro worker.
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I do vote in the primaries. It leads to one more level of disappointment when my choice barely even makes a blip on the radar.
There's been at least 1 in every primary election (Score:4, Insightful)
Very few people show up to primary elections. If every person who bitched online about pro-corporate dems showed up for the Primary and googled the candidate's policy before hand we'd been half way through President Sander's second term with 52 pro-consumer Senators and however many in the house (I lost track)
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As useless as my vote is, I do vote in primaries when allowed to do so. It's made zero difference, same as my vote in the general elections. I still do it, but it's the equivalent of pissing into the wind in my state. Zero chance any candidate that isn't a corporate shill will ever be elected. We Elected Kristi Noem governor for fuck sake. That woman's one of the most shady people in government, and yes, I know that's saying something.
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The Court didn't decide that arbitration was required:
Held: A district court must stay its proceedings while an interlocutory appeal on the question of arbitrability is ongoing. [supremecourt.gov]
(There are allegations of fraud, which may be why the Federal Arbitration Act hasn't answered that question.)
The dissent points out why a majority-Republican court might take the position it did:
This mandatory-general-stay rule for interlocutory arbitrability appeals comes out of nowhere. No statute imposes it. Nor does any decision of this Court. Yet today’s majority invents a new stay rule perpetually favoring one class of litigants—defendants seeking arbitration.
To his credit, Thomas followed his idiosyncratic jurisprudence and joined parts of the dissent (though not what I quoted). Fed Soc will probably make him sit by the bathroom on his next private flight.
Re: Much as I hate this partisan Supreme Court (Score:2)
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You are running under the assumption that all laws passed by Congress are legitimate, which is exactly what the Supreme Court is expected to judge. In this case, the Court seems to feel that the public court system can be exchanged for private "justice" systems. This would not be correct or in anyone's best interest. Well, it's in the best interest of companies that would not fare well in court but, can expect to bend an "arbitration" system.
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By definition any law passed by Congress is legitimate.
The USSC determines if the law passed is constitutional.
As far as arbitration vs court goes, the little guy doesn't stand a chance in court because he can't afford a legal team to fight a big corporation for years.
In many cases the only option is arbitration (not great) vs court (can't afford it at all).
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Arbitration is basically a way for companies to win. Because whoever has the most money wins in arbitration, it avoids the messy complications that a company might actually lose to a customer because a judge or jury was able to hear the facts and make an independent decision. Imagine if tobacco companies had required arbitration to be used by any of their customers several decades back.
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Imagine if a little guy, in this case with a $31k claim, had to start off by paying his lawyer a $10k retained just to get started. Then he has to pay all court fees, the lawyer's office expenses, and anything else that comes up.
By the time he's in court his expenses are already $30k on a $31k claim.
I'd rather have arbitration, thanks. I don't see how you think court is the cheaper way to go where money isn't the winner.
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Except I was at a company that had been known to sue or counter sue ex employees. So they came up with an arbitration agreement for everyone. One clause essentially said if either party disagrees with the settlement, they can have another arbitration process started with expenses paid by the disputing party. Which means, if I was in arbitration and lost, I would have to fork over the money to try arbitration again, and again, and again, until I was out of money. It guaranteed that whoever had the most mo
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That's the first I've ever heard of an infinite loop pay until you're broke arbitration agreement. Easy answer: don't work for that company or expect to get fired later with no recourse.
There are other non court options btw. You can file a complaint with the eeoc and then it becomes a government action.
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This is another one of those "change how you vote" cases, where the law is what the law is, and if we don't like it we need to stop voting for pro-corporate goons.
The IQ at which true abstract/critical thinking occurs is around 110. The average American IQ is 98. A full SD below 110. The voters who care about such issues are dramatically outnumbered by those who do not.
Democracy is idiot rule. Okay, that is extreme, it is Average Rule. That does, however, preclude most notions of voting on the issues.
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You have a point since Bush appointed Roberts and Alito after he was re-elected when he actually did win the popular vote as the incumbent. Of course, he had the incumbent effect on his side after losing the popular vote (and basically having the Presidency handed to him by the supreme court rather than a proper recount) so a lot of people are a bit bitter about that, especially after Trump won despite losing the popular vote by so much (after be bitterly complained himself about how stupid and broken the e
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That Florida vote was counted and recounted so many times, including by the New York Times, who said Gore lost.
We had an election. We counted. We counted several more times. There was no count from anyone at anytime when Gore won. Please do not retcon historical fact and claim victimhood and conspiracy based on your retcon.
As far as the popular vote goes, we do not elect the president based on the popular vote or the square miles of voting districts or the size of his penis or any other random arbitrary
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That Florida vote was counted and recounted so many times, including by the New York Times, who said Gore lost.
We had an election. We counted. We counted several more times. There was no count from anyone at anytime when Gore won. Please do not retcon historical fact and claim victimhood and conspiracy based on your retcon.
I'm not retconning anything. The problem with the Florida vote was that the machines were broken. Tens of thousands of votes - something like 100X the margin Bush won by - were not counted in Florida because the machines did not punch all the way through the paper. The supreme court gave the election to Bush on "equal protection" grounds - based on the idea that not all localities in Florida performed recounts under the same standard. This was a bad decision. The correct decision in a democracy - if the sup
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The ballots were hand counted so many times by different people both government and private such as the New York Times that they had to stop because they were damaging the original ballots.
I will say that again: hand counted.
Since you don't seem to recall the facts, they "divined the will of the voter". Every nick, scratch, partially punched hole, ballots where both holes were marked but the person voted parry lone everywhere else, etc, were all very broadly interpreted as votes.
Not a single one of,those B
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The Flrorida Supreme Court ordered a statewide manual recount of 61,000 votes that the tabulating machines had discarded. The US Supreme court stopped that recount, leaving Bush to win by less than the margin of error. It's as simple as that. In the end, rather than establishing a clear democratic process, in line with Florida State law, the Supreme court instead froze the election with Bush in the lead, effectively handing the election to him. There were various remedies to the "equal protection" problem o
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Separately, you can do polls on lots of things. 10% of Americans polled say the earth is flat. A much larger and varying number say angels are real. And so on. We fortunately do not run our country by polls of semi random people.
If you want to do pure democracy then propose a constitutional amendment and make it happen. I'm not aware of anyone actually trying it. If so many people want it and we are so much smarter than the Founders then it should be an easy change. Yet no one tried. Because no one
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Multiple responses to one post from the same commenter. Ugh, this can't end well.
Separately, you can do polls on lots of things. 10% of Americans polled say the earth is flat. A much larger and varying number say angels are real. And so on. We fortunately do not run our country by polls of semi random people.
j
Certainly a significant portion of the public are stupid or insane, or at least have certain subjects that they are stupid and/or insane about. Of course, the exact same problem applies to democracy itself. Generally you hope for the lunatic fringes to cancel each other out. I am talking about poll results that go well beyond the lunatic fringes, however.
If you want to do pure democracy then propose a constitutional amendment and make it happen. I'm not aware of anyone actually trying it. If so many people want it and we are so much smarter than the Founders then it should be an easy change. Yet no one tried. Because no one of note actually wants raw democracy because it's fucking ugly and stupid af.
I never said anything about doing direct democracy. You don't need direct
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No, you're confused (Score:2)
What you are advocating has a clear bright line leading right toward armed conflict.
You'll not like it if it comes, and beg for it to ultimately end. When it does finally end, you probably won't like what form government takes then, either.
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to suffer all the nasty consequences yet again.
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If the latter happened, then why would you blame the American people f
Wow what a shocker (Score:1)
$upreme court sides with business to fuck over consumers.
The law is clear (Score:5, Informative)
"1925 Federal Arbitration Act, which says courts must enforce arbitration accords the same as any other contract."
If the law should be changed then it is up to the elected legislature to do that.
I agree the law should be changed, but it's not the job of the judiciary to overrule a law unless its deemed unconstitutional.
Re:The law is clear (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree the law should be changed, but it's not the job of the judiciary to overrule a law unless its deemed unconstitutional.
"In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."
You can't contract away other constitutional rights, so why is this one different?
Re:The law is clear (Score:4, Interesting)
An NDA "contracts away" your right to free speech, does it not? NBA contracts restrict the right to bear arms. Your employer (and in some cases, your landlord) can require you subject your property to search. Why is an agreement* that we will settle any disputes over our contract in a non-judicial setting unconstitutional on its face?
* - I am no fan of forced arbitration clauses (especially in instances where the bargaining power of the parties is lopsided) but as the GP says, the law is the law. If you don't like the law, don't rely on the courts to change it for you, that's not how our system works.
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None of these are the same, because the government is not imposing those limitations on your freedom. In the case of forced arbitration, by refusing to allow you to take your case to court, the government is limiting your rights.
Can you contract yourself into slavery?
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The government has imposed nothing--the government has made a provision for a contractual provision between two parties, which, at least in theory, has been entered into by both of their own free will, to be enforced by the courts. Nothing requires you to enter into such a contract, you can refuse to sign on that has a binding arbitration clause. If the other party wants your money or goods badly enough, they are free to agree with you that arbitration is not necessary--or free to simply not to do busines
Section 8 Housing can not ban guns! (Score:2)
Section 8 Housing can not ban guns!
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Nor should section 8 ban guns. Poor people have a right to self defense, too.
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However, even if you are European I don't think you have protection from this particular issue. Arbitration is handled by the New York Convention and more than 170 countries have signed on to that.
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The point here is that one of the parties wanted to skip the arbitration accords altogether and go straight to the courts WHILE his arbitration proceedings are still pending. The SCOTUS simply said you can't do that, if the point of arbitration is that you don't go to the courts, then you should wait to go to the court when the arbitration is complete, not start parallel proceedings in multiple venues.
It's Amazing (Score:3)
All these horrible actors are getting passes in court while regular citizens are losing left and right.
It's almost like this SCOTUS has decided if a decision helps the citizens then they're against it.
On the flip side, I think the fools who did anything with crypto should just have to face the consequences they got fucked. Our government shouldn't be protecting people who decide to invest in unsecured illeg---
Oh. They're rich. That's it.
Re:It's Amazing (Score:5, Informative)
So go on and tell me they don't care anything about common citizens or whatever other uninformed claptrap you can muster. The truth is you didn't like this opinion of theirs, which is certainly fine and you've your right to your own opinion. But then you made up a bunch of bullshit to go along with it. You honestly have no idea because outside of a few newsworthy cases, you don't look at their opinions.
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In your example, they ruled against a state.
The state was very unlikely to host a junket for any of these justices. No skin off their backs in this case.
If we have abitration (Score:3)
Mass arbitration (Score:4, Interesting)
arbitration is unconstitutional (Score:1)
The US Constitution says that citizens have a right to trial by jury of their peers "for all matters civil and criminal." Arbitration came about as a handshake agreement between businesses to settle their disputes privately to save the time and money of going to court. At some point, the scumbags realized they could foist this off on the little guy so they could always win. It went to scotus, and the LEFT WING sycophants on scotus at the time decided that was just fine. And, that's where we are now.
hire a hacker (Score:1)