Hightower Lowdown

The Seventh Amendment to our Constitution guarantees us the right to go to court when we've been wronged, to present our case before a jury of our peers. It's a right that is under assualt these days from fine print, corporate artists who are rewriting the rules and compelling us to surrender our right to a fair legal process.

The culprits likely include your phone company, your employer, your credit card company, and other corporations that deal with you through consumer agreements that you've probably never read, much less comprehended. Tucked into all that fine print, you'll find a paragraph of gobbledygook under the arcane heading of "arbitration of disputes," which surgically removes your right to sue the corporation if you've been cheated, abused, or otherwise harmed by it—although you'll need a law degree and a magnifying glass to figure that out.

In place of your constitutional right to trial, the fine print substitutes an "arbitration panel"—a kangaroo court in which the corporation gets to limit the evidence you can present, prevent you from cross examining witnesses, deny you a written record of the proceedings, and prevent you from appealing the decision.

To learn more about this assault on our basic freedoms, contact the Mandatory Arbitration Abuse Prevention Project 202 797 8600.