What do the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the Enron and Worldcom scandals have in common? Corporate greed run amok? Lax government oversight? How about a Supreme Court that has shifted dangerously to the right and is now the most pro-business Court since the monopoly greasing "Lochner-era" Court of the late 19th Century?
Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on recent Supreme Court decisions that favor corporate rights and interests over the fundamental rights and liberties of individuals. At issue is whether the courts should be protecting us or corporations. Unfortunately, it's clear that the Court has an increasingly pro-business tilt that will continue to favor business over individuals until the American people and Congress push back.
In the last Supreme Court term alone, the Court ruled against individual rights in three significant cases involving corporate accountability, the environment and binding mandatory arbitration. In each of these cases--which are the subject of today's hearing-- the Court rolled back the rights of regular Americans to favor corporations. According to testimony released today by the progressive think tank the Constitutional Accountability Center , these recent decisions demonstrate that the Supreme Court has departed from the text and history of the Constitution. This is significant for a Court that supposedly prides itself on taking its mandate from the text of the Constitution.
In the corporate accountability case, Stoneridge Investment Partners, LLC v. Scientific-Atlanta, the Supreme Court held that victims of securities fraud can no longer recover damages against accountants, lawyers, financial advisors or other businesses responsible for inflating stock prices and defrauding them. The decision, considered the most important securities case in a generation, spells doom for the shareholders who owned stock in Enron, and tens of thousands of investors across the nation who may no longer recover damages from those who participated in a scheme to defraud them.
The environmental case is Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker. We're all too familiar with the Exxon Valdez, the supertanker steered by a drunk captain straight into the Bligh Reef, spilling 11 million gallons of oil into the previously-pristine Prince William Sound.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has invited Alaska fisherwoman Osa Schultz to recount her experience. At the time of the spill, Ms. Schultz lived in a quiet fishing town called Cordova at the head of Price William Sound. Ms. Schultz watched as the spill devastated the local herring population, destroying the foundation of the local economy. Almost twenty years later, the spill continues to affect her family, her business, and her community. You can hear her tell her story here.
An Anchorage jury ordered Exxon to pay $5 billion in punitive damages to the 32,000 fisherpeople like Ms. Schultz whose lives were ruined by Exxon's brazen recklessness. On appeal, the award was slashed to $2.5 billion.
Exxon is the single most profitable company in the world. Last year, Exxon made $40.6 billion in profit, over $10 billion per quarter. The Supreme Court ruled last month that even the smaller award was excessive, and further reduced Exxon's fine to around $500 million, saying that punitive damages should not exceed actual damages. The fine will cost Exxon approximately four days worth of profit.
The last case involves the growing dominance of mandatory arbitration and is perhaps the most damaging to our system of justice. Over the past decade the Supreme Court has interpreted the Federal Arbitration Act in a way that has gradually eroded people's right to their day in court. The most recent such case is Preston v. Ferrer in which the Court held that any questions related to a contract with an arbitration clause must be decided by an arbitrator, not a court of law or state agency, even if one of the parties asserts that the contract is void or challenges the propriety of arbitration.
According to Tort Deform, the problem with mandatory arbitration extends far and wide because on a regular basis, we inadvertently sign away our right to go to a court and have a trial by our peers. Often found nestled in a small section of a contract for things like a credit card or software package, arbitration agreements have become widespread and are closing the courthouse doors to millions of Americans.
Consider the story of Tracy Barker, a former Halliburton employee who was sexually assaulted by her co-workers, only to see her case against them thrown out of court because of a mandatory arbitration agreement. Indeed, in about 94% of the arbitrations involving employment disputes, the employers win, and the employee is forced to pay the arbitrator for the privilege of hearing their claims, as well the employer's legal expenses.
According to Robin Conrad, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's public policy law firm, the National Chamber Litigation Center, the first Roberts term was "... our best Supreme Court term in 30 years. We submitted filings in more cases than ever this term, and we won more cases than ever." In fact, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Chamber of Commerce in 21 of 30 (70%) of the cases they filed a brief in over the first two terms of the Roberts Court.
There are efforts underway to restore individual rights in the face of the Court's rightward shift away from protecting Americans. Today's hearing is one such effort to expose--on the record-- the impact of the Court's agenda. In addition to shining a light on these developments through hearings, Congress is considering legislation to address some of the issues raised by the Court's recent round of decisions, including the Arbitration Fairness Act and the Civil Rights Act of 2008, and may soon consider fixing the Exxon ruling.
Unfortunately, the work of the Court doesn't receive much attention. The hearings today are an important step toward getting all of us to watch what the Court is doing and to push back, so that the decisions of the Court will value and protect all of us and our rights.
Technology changes so quickly and completely at the moment that we really need upper age caps or evalutaions of technological comprehension of some sort. And we need briefer Supreme COurt assignments, and they need to be based on adherence to the Constitution and its intents rather than due to any politician, and our entire political system needs to be gutted to prohibit our leaders from benefitting directly or indirectly due to any business or other political interests that could unduly influence them....
Lots of "and"s, no real tangible options. It's not likely politicians will curb their own profligate spending and abuse of tax dollars, but if we can even do such small things as to de-politicize and limit Supreme Court justice's serving time and put impeachment out of the realm of partisan politics and firmly into a more automated style in which violations of human rights, international law, or the Constitution result in impeachment procedures and criminal trial of all involved no matter what party is in control or how partial the Court might be.
Still a tall order, but we've seen what can happen if we let nepotism run rampant and let our politicians privatize our nation at our cost and their benefit, so hopefully we'll get some degree of overhaul....
So what's the converse situation? Having a left-wing SCOTUS who would have ruled in favor of Washington DC in the DC vs Heller case, which would have obviously infringed upon the rights of law-abiding INDIVIDUALS and their freedoms and re-written the bill of rights?
No thanks. I'd rather a SCOTUS which would err on the right side instead of the left anyday.
Sure, the retroactive immunity for telecoms sucks, but without a working version of FISA, we effectively HAVE no rights for the violation of which the telecoms could be charged; no court to charge them with such crimes even if our rights were recognized separately; and no lines over which to say they'd crossed in their surveillance.
We can all argue that there should have been a larger and more sustained effort to remove that vile immunity part (there should have, even if only as a show of force). But if FISA had been allowed to expire without some sort of replacement, we would have no recourse for charging the telecoms, no system in which to do so, and that likely would have led to a permanent immunity for the telecoms because the current lack of FISA court would prohibit any venue in which to challenge their actions.
Try again.
A law (like forced arbitration) may be unfair, but if it doesn't violate any particular aspect of the consitution, then the court is bound. They can't simply call it unfair and rule against it. They can only call it unconstitutional. If it passes the constitution test, then they must judge based upon what the legislative branch has passed.
That is the danger of activist judges. If a judge is no longer bound by the written law or the constitution, then what are they bound by? There are remedies in place for this. They should be followed.
If there is no possibility of removing the corporate shills from what used to be the highest court in the land, then the hearings will be of dubious value. But Congress likes to hold hearings and demand investigations because it looks as if they're doing something, when in fact no action or change of policy is in danger of occurring. Stay the course! Steady as she goes! Don't disrupt the flow of corporate cash into our "campaign funds"!
please examine your use of shifting to the "right" vs. left. i understand your drift, but in an american sense of the word - albeit a historical sense - to the right would imply conservatism. real conservatives follow the constitution, as do real liberals. what they push for through the constitution are different ideologies.
what we have is a plutocracy, mechanized by a corporate fascist structure. complicit are the judicial branch, executive branch, congress and especially the free money monster, private bank the Federal Reserve.
"allow me to control and issue a nation's money and i care not who writes its laws!" amshell rothschild.
- end the fed
- change tort (as you addressed)
- end money in lobby
- kick the bums out
- follow the constitution across the board
what would that do? change the u.s. back to a production/savings based society vs. consumer/debt based. end wars and interventionism. give the little man equal footing in a true free market.
then we can legitimately squabble over red, blue and long overdue rainbow of colors to choose from.
think they were moving to the left ( trials for political prisioners and a mandate for emmisions) . Smoke and mirrors, Smoke and mirrors.
Might I add that it is not just the Supreme Court but also the District judges added since the begining of the Bush administration ,with the help of many Democrats I might add. Let's call Senator Leahy and see just how many Bush appointees they have installed without public scrutiny. For instance ,the judge who ruled for the ' protection racket' in Mississippi after the hurricanes.
Now they have passed FISA ( thanks again for nothing Democrats) you have to admit that FISA judges are just as untrustworthy and any othe right wing appointee.
All these right wing judges destroying our rights and so many guns in the hands of sharpshooters. Go figure it.