Court Access

December 24, 2013

Arbitration and Consumer Rights

A recent issue of Inside Higher Education calls attention to a little-known battle that American consumers have been losing more and more frequently. Few of us realize the extent to which we are signing away hard-won consumer protections. Worse still, even people who are aware of the situation often find that they have no real option. Choice, if one can call it that, often comes down to surrendering rights or doing without some crucial good or service.

The article focuses specifically on for-profit colleges, describing how Career Education Corporation defrauded both investors and its own students. In 2011 it emerged that the company “cooked the books on the job placement rates they were disclosing to prospective students and regulators.” A settlement was eventually reached but, as the magazine details, the $27.5 million in relief it offered went entirely to CECO’s investors. The students who wasted their money on degrees of little value and for which they paid under false pretenses did not get their money back and, indeed, remained on the hook for student loans (student loans are often the primary revenue stream at for-profit colleges and universities).

As Inside Higher Education explains: “What accounts for this disparity? The answer is that investors in for-profit colleges have access to the courts for filing their grievances, while most of the sector’s students do not.” This, in turn, is because the small print legalese those students had sign off on to attend CECO’s colleges included a clause in which students surrendered their right to sue the schools and their parent company and, instead, required them to submit to binding arbitration.

October 29, 2012

Standing Up to the Chamber – Standing Up for Oregonians’ Rights

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Last week the US Chamber of Commerce held its annual Legal Reform Summit – an event designed to scare Americans into believing that our courts are out of control. The American Association of Justice took this opportunity to set the record straight, posting an online slide show designed to educate Oregonians and other Americans about the Chamber’s excesses.

Titled “Top 10 Ways the US chamber Hurts Americans” the presentation highlights both the Chamber’s hypocrisy – its denunciation of “bailouts” even as it sought them for its largest corporate members – and the broader damage it does to the nation at large as one of the leading promoters of climate change denial.

This is an embedded Microsoft Office presentation, powered by Office Web Apps.

June 15, 2012

Oregon Supreme Court Backs Release of Boy Scout Files

by Matthew D. Kaplan

An important decision announced yesterday by the Oregon Supreme Court bolsters both the principle of openness in our court system and the idea that a key function of the courts is to enforce accountability.

According to the New York Times a unanimous ruling by the Oregon Supreme Court “cleared the way… for the release of thousands of pages of documents detailing accusations and investigations of sexual abuse or other improprieties by Boy Scout leaders around the nation from the mid-1960s into the 1980s.” The documents, which the Scouts’ leadership referred to as “the perversion files” were the keystone of the 2010 sexual abuse case that focused national attention on the organization. The organization was fined over $18 million because of its efforts to cover up the abuse of young boys rather than reporting it to authorities.

It is sad to see that even now the Scouts seem more concerned about protecting their organizational reputation than they are about the many injuries to children enabled by their decades-long conduct. As described by the Times, the files “were kept as a way of weeding out bad leaders and preventing abuse” but proved to be especially damaging to the organization because they offered proof that the Scouts’ leadership knew of cases of sexual abuse but did nothing to bring the guilty adults to justice.

December 30, 2011

Oregon Truck Accident Settlement Shows Power of Courts for Justice

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A few days ago I wrote about the importance of access to our courts and the myth that Oregon personal injury lawsuits are frivolous actions designed to clog up the legal system and undercut the business community. A case settled earlier this month in the southern part of our state illustrates my point perfectly. Through a settlement announced just before Christmas a severely injured motorist has used the legal system to achieve accountability from those responsible for his suffering and, in the process, to see justice done.

According to an account by the Associated Press, the victim of a horrific Oregon car-truck accident a year ago in Central Point will receive a $1.4 million payment to account for the injuries and trauma he suffered when “a trailer detached from the rig that was pulling it and slammed into his Chevy Silverado, flattening it and trapping him inside.”

Trapped in the wreckage for an hour-and-a-half the pick-up’s driver was badly injured. Upon finally reaching a hospital “he was treated for a broken neck, spinal fluid leakage… and (multiple) fractures… as well as nerve damage in his right arm and wrist,” the news agency reports. His suit against the truck driver and the driver’s employer alleged that the truck was operating recklessly at the time of the Oregon truck crash and that the vehicle had not been properly maintained.

December 27, 2011

Fighting For Court Access for Everyone

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A few weeks ago I alerted readers to the new movie Hot Coffee and the vital message it has for all of us as Americans. It is important that we educate ourselves concerning attempts by powerful corporations to curtail access to our courts. Now, the American Association for Justice has done us all a service by taking on one of the most powerful organs of corporate America, the United States Chamber of Commerce.

As a recent article on AAJ’s website lays out, though the C of C complains loudly and often about excessive lawsuits which are supposedly clogging our courts, “the U.S. Chamber is actually one of the most aggressive litigators in Washington D.C., entering lawsuits at a rate of twice weekly.” At the same time, however, the Chamber, through its Institute for Legal Reform, lobbies heavily “for legislation that would close the courthouse doors on anyone who would attempt to hold negligent corporations accountable.”

As every Portland personal injury attorney can attest, the barriers corporate America puts in the way of ordinary citizens seeking to confront powerful companies whom they believe have wronged them are formidable. Contrary to popular belief, getting to court is not easy. Winning in court is even harder, especially when one is faced with powerful and deep-pocketed corporate adversaries. As the article notes, the Chamber’s ILR branch “has the sole mission of making it more difficult for individuals harmed by negligent corporations to access the civil justice system.” The article contains a link to two detailed AAJ reports documenting the Chamber and ILR’s activities.