By Professor Peter Friedman
In my recent two-part guest post published in Disputing about recent state court decisions striking down mandatory arbitration clauses and class action waivers in consumer, online transactions, I concluded that those courts were “acting in legitimate ways [by requiring contract] disputes to be resolved in ways that provide relief for and deterrence of wrongdoing.” (Part I here; Part II here) In particular, I applauded the New Mexico Supreme Court and the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for making explicit the purely public policy grounds for invalidating mandatory arbitration clauses and class action waivers in consumer transactions. See Feeney v. Dell Inc., ___ Mass. ___ (July 2, 2009); Fiser v. Dell Computer Corp., ___ P.3d ___ (N.M. June 27, 2009). The courts concluded that the provisions deprived consumers of any meaningful remedies for the defendants’ alleged breaches of contract and that those provisions were therefore in conflict with strong state policies in favor of consumer protection.
It is worth examining more closely, however, my reasons for believing the courts in these cases were acting in judicially legitimate ways. It might be suggested, for example, that, if a court could strike these particular provisions down on public policy it had articulated without explicit statutory support, there would be nothing to stop courts from striking down any arbitration provisions on judicially formulated public policy grounds. Continue Reading »
