Legal rulings ended a century of class-action consumer protection

Evidence

In April 2011, another Supreme Court decision, AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, permitted corporations to end-run class-action suits, forcing disgruntled consumers to enter into individual arbitration, instead. Class-action suits have long been crucial instruments of worker and consumer resistance to discriminatory, deceptive, or fraudulent corporate behavior, from underpaying and overcharging to polluting or violating health and safety laws. These have now been effectively neutered. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 299

Categorization

• SHARE: For someone following Supreme Court erosion of collective action mechanisms — the AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion decision as a specific ‘game-changer’ ending class actions.
• XREF: connects to: Mandatory class-action-waiver arbitration clauses quietly extinguish small consumer claims — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 1513