Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/13/inside-this-star-wars-blanket.html
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Binding arbitration. Well, that’s just an Empire thing to do, isn’t it?
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You don’t have standing to sue until you purchase the product, but you give up your right to sue if you buy the product. Lawyer douche force field activated!
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Seems like there should be a little chip speaker that plays John William’s “The Imperial March” while the fine print slowly looms into view.
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This binding arbitration clause scourge in consumer contracts really needs to be banned in the US.
In most of Europe this is an illegal abusive practice and it is banned already because of unequal bargaining power between the contracting parties. Also shrink-wrap statements like this likely wouldn’t be considered a valid contract (a pre-requisite for waiving the right to sue and to submit to arbitration).
For more analysis see: http://www.hausfeld.com/news/eu/mandatory-arbitration-in-the-united-state-and-europe
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Oh man, I hope the case that ends binding arbitration in the U.S. is called “United States vs. Snuggie”
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“I am forcing binding arbitration on the deal. Pray I don’t alter it further.”
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I think you should send them a letter binding them to pay you dividends for life. Hey, if you didn’t want to, why did you open the letter?
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By posting this Boing Boing has made me the owner of the boingboing.net domain name.
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Be interesting to see if this would stand if the person purchasing the thing is blind or illiterate. Can’t see how it could be enforced upon someone who was unaware it even existed since they would not know they could “opt out”.
Also, in California at least, as I recall, the contract has to be in the language of the deal, that is, if you call their Spanish speaking line (and I bet they have one), that little card better show up in Spanish or it won’t be enforceable as I understand it.
Once more we see a basic problem societal problem caused by lawyers who have no functioning sense of ethics or morality…
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Hahahah that’s not how the legal system works. That being said making patently false legal claims should be illegal and people attempting to scare consumers into accepting this needs to stop. I don’t know if there’s a slapp type lawsuit people could make. If only the government actually worked for the people instead of corporations.
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Well, yes, it is. One of them is illegally extorting money while the other concerns theoretical binding arbitration for a blanket.
This is like every email declaration that I need to inform them that I have received it in error.
No I don’t. It’s unenforceable and useless, therefore literally pointless and only scares people from actually exercising their rights.
Fuck this blanket.
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Other than a very small number of lawyers proactively seeking out participants for a novel class action, lawyers work for clients, and clients set the standards and make the decision.
Of course lawyers, being people, should be able to walk away from the money, take the moral stand, and refuse to do something that is perfectly legal but also ethically abhorrent. But the same standard also applies to the client, and everyone else on the team that made and implemented the decision. Each of them has an obligation to what is right all the time.
It would be nice to say - well, if only all the lawyers always took the moral high ground, we wouldn’t have these issues. But we could say the same about the CEOs, the managers, basically anyone who contributed to or signed off on the action. They are all culpable.
Lawyers do have “professional responsibility”, but that concept is just as problematic, saying essentially that the moral buck stops with the lawyer, and doesn’t continue up to the client. It’s as if the client/company can say “The lawyer told me it was ok” and wash their hands of it. Well of course the lawyer may have told you it was legally ok, but the moral decision still rests with each individual, and each individual participating in the process is responsible for their own moral actions. Including the lawyers. And including all the executives and other decision makers. We should not hold them to a lower standard.
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There’s a separate card inside covering potential damages from the fucking of this blanket, should fucking occur. Lawyers, man.
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Part of an attorney’s duties as I understand them is to advise a client as to right and wrong in such issues or at least to suggest why this is a very bad idea.
And I do know that, in theory, attorneys are supposed to have a higher obligation to society as a whole. To uphold and promote the highest ethical standards.
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I am indeed illiterate in the language used in every such bogus agreement.
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Posted in the wrong place. Think of relevant post and pretend it never happened…
I’d sooner kiss a wookie!
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Evidently, the Empire’s lawyers are better shots than its Stormtroopers.
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They left out “DAYS” in line 10.
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