If you think that your rights have been violated, you can sue to enforce them. This is particularly important if your rights have been violated by a state or by the federal government, because in that case it’s unlikely that a government agency is going to take your side. The right to sue is arguably the most fundamental right that exists, because it is the right to have rights in the first place. For example, the Sixth Amendment (as interpreted in Gideon v. Wainwright) says that you have the right to an attorney if you are charged with a felony. But many states and localities refuse to pay for lawyers for the poor; see Dylan Walsh in The Atlantic, or the story of Jack Bailey on This American Life, for example. So you have to sue. A series of lawsuits by the Southern Center for Human Rights led to the creation of the Georgia public defender system, and the Southern Center continues to challenge judicial circuits that fail to provide sufficient representation for poor defendants.

But the right to sue is slowly being limited, not just by “litigation reform” acts but particularly by Supreme Court decisions that made it harder for plaintiffs to challenge secret wrongdoing by companies (Bell Atlantic), enhanced government officials’ immunity from private lawsuits (Iqbal), enforced mandatory arbitration clauses in standard form contracts (AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, American Express v. Italian Colors Restaurant), limited the jurisdictional reach of federal courts (J. McIntyre Mach. v. Nicastro), and prevented plaintiffs from obtaining injunctions against illegal government actions unless they could prove that they were likely to be harmed by those actions again in the future (City of Los Angeles v. Lyon). The common theme is increasing restrictions on the ability of ordinary people (or small businesses in some cases) to challenge illegal actions by large companies and governments. But no one ever said, “Your rights are being limited.” Instead, changes in legal procedure effectively increased the cost of enforcing those rights—in some cases to infinity.

What is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau?

• The CFPB is a federal agency created in 2010 with the goal of ensuring consumers are not ripped off by Big Banks and other financial institutions.
• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was created in the wake of the financial crisis to stand up for consumers and make sure they are treated fairly in the consumer financial marketplace.

What has the CFPB done for consumers and the financial marketplace?

• The CFPB has implemented new, common-sense mortgage rules to protect consumers against the problems that led to the housing crisis.
  
  
• The CFPB has handled over one million complaints from consumers about their problems with financial products and services.
  


• The CFPB has addressed discriminatory financing in auto lending. 
  


• The CFPB’s enforcement work and the consumer complaints it has handled have resulted in millions of dollars in monetary relief to consumers as well as other remedies, such as cleaning up credit reports or correcting the terms of a loan. 
  


• The CFPB is developing proposed rules to protect consumers from harmful debt collection practices and the worst payday loan debt traps.
  


• The CFPB has taken legal actions against:
  
  
  • Credit card companies for engaging in unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices related to marketing, billing, and enrollment for credit add-on products and services;
    
  
  
  • Banks for charging overdraft fees to consumers who had not agreed to overdraft services;
    
  
  
  • Payday lenders for pressuring borrowers into debt traps;
    
  
  
  • For-profit colleges for exploiting students and pushing them into unaffordable loans;
    
  
  
  • Debt collectors for using illegal tactics to intimidate consumers into paying debts they may not owe;
    
  
  
  • Mortgage companies for wrongly foreclosing on consumers’ homes.
    

What are the main attacks on the CFPB?

They are plans by Wall Street lobbyists and their allies in Congress to cripple the CFPB’s ability to function as an effective and politically independent watchdog. Specifically, they hope to:

• Put the CFPB under a five-member commission chosen by party leaders, instead of a single director, and
  


• Take away its independent funding, forcing the agency to depend on annual congressional appropriations.
  

Here’s the problem with these proposals:

Big banks would be able to use the politically charged appropriations process to deny funding for rulewriting or enforcement actions. They could take away the basic funds it needs to do its job, or threaten to do so in order to intimidate the agency out of taking actions to curb abuses by powerful companies. Multi-member boards often fall into a pattern of gridlock, inactivity, and a chronic unwillingness to challenge the industries they are charged with overseeing.

American consumers support the CFPB:

• Poll: More than nine in 10 voters agree that it is important to regulate financial services and products in order to make sure they are fair for consumers.
  
• Poll: Majorities of Americans across party lines (70 percent of Democrats, 52 percent of Republicans, and 69 percent of Independents) approve of the CFPB’s efforts to restore the ability of financial consumers to band together in lawsuits against banks and lenders that engage in wrongdoing.
  

What is forced arbitration and the CFPB forced arbitration rulemaking?

• The Dodd-Frank-Wall Street Reform & Consumer Protection Act granted the CFPB authority to prohibit forced arbitration clauses in consumer financial contracts.
  


• The CFPB has issued a proposed rule that would eliminate arbitration clauses in financial services contracts that ban class actions.
  


• Arbitration clauses are inserted into the fine print of many consumer contracts, including for financial products and services such as credit cards, checking accounts, prepaid cards and student loans.
  


• Forced arbitration means that when a dispute arises between a consumer and a company, the consumer is denied access to courts, and must settle disputes with powerful corporations, including banks and lenders, in a private arbitration system.
  


• Arbitration clauses include other restrictive terms such as prohibiting consumers from banding together in class actions.
  


• Companies determine the location of arbitration proceedings, set the rules of the game, and name the firm that must be used in arbitration.
  


• Corporate wrongdoers are able to avoid accountability by using forced arbitration because it can be expensive, it’s biased, and it lacks court oversight.
  

Did you know the US Government garnishes (takes money from) the Social Security payments of elders and disabled folks who owe student loans, and that they are not required to get a court judgment first?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: DECEMBER 20, 2016    Contacts: Persis Yu (pyu@nclc.org); 617.542.8010

GAO Report Shows Draconian Consequences of SSA Offsets for Student Loan Borrowers

Today, the Government Accountability Office released a report documenting the draconian consequences that the Department of the Treasury’s practice of garnishing Americans’ social security payments has on vulnerable student loan borrowers in default.
 
“Taking money from Social Security retirement or disability benefits to repay old student loans is an extraordinary collection tool. It is time to reexamine this program and weigh the true costs of taking Social Security benefits from elderly and disabled Americans against the small amount this brings into federal coffers,” said director of NCLC’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance project, Persis Yu.
 
The report found that for more than two-thirds of borrowers whose monthly benefit was below the poverty line, the money deducted from their Social Security benefits was enough only to pay fees and interest, so the amount of the debt was not even reduced. The report also found that of older student loan borrowers with a Social Security offset, 43% had held their loans for 20 years or more and 80% had held their loans for 10 years or more. “For too many borrowers, there is no light at the end of this tunnel,” said Yu.
 
Although there are rules designed to protect a portion of the recipient’s benefits, the dollar amount protected has not changed since 1996, and leaves a borrower with only $750/month ($9,000/year) to live on. There is also a process for borrowers to stop or reduce the amount of the offset if it is causing financial hardship, but the report found that the Department does not proactively tell borrowers about this right. “It is unacceptable that vulnerable borrowers are facing hardship simply because the Department of Education is not informing them of their rights.”
 
Since 2005, NCLC advocates have highlighted the need for Congress to better protect Social Security recipients. At a minimum, advocates have called for Congress to index the $9,000 exemption to cost of living or inflation increases and to apply a ten year limit to Social Security offsets.

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Since 1969, the nonprofit National Consumer Law Center® (NCLC®) has worked for consumer justice and economic security for low-income and other disadvantaged people, including older adults, in the U.S. through its expertise in policy analysis and advocacy, publications, litigation, expert witness services, and training. www.nclc.org
 
NCLC’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project provides information about student loan rights and responsibilities for borrowers and advocates. We also seek to increase public understanding of student lending issues and to identify policy solutions to promote access to education, lessen student debt burdens, and make loan repayment more manageable.

Outstanding New York Times exposé:

Wells Fargo’s legal success shows the overwhelming power that arbitration clauses have in shaping disputes between everyday Americans and huge corporations.

Since a pair of Supreme Court rulings in 2011 and 2013 allowed for the widespread use of arbitration, companies have had great success enforcing these clauses.

Read the Awful Reality that hides beneath the blizzard of utter BS that Big Banks and other businesses pump out about the "advantages" of forcing you out of your Constitutional right to have your day in court

Saw a great quote today from a hero of the law:

“We are Lawyers on the Side of People. Never let us forget that the Law is  never settled until it is settled right, it is never right until it is just, and it is never just until it serves society to the fullest.”  -- Harry Philo

Chamber Watch released a new report on Chamber of Commerce litigation.

It looks at roughly 3 years’ worth (and over 500 cases) of Chamber litigation.  Some of its major findings include:

·         For an organization that decries litigiousness and tries to limit consumers’ access to the courts, the Chamber is a prolific litigator, filing a suit or amicus brief every other day of the work week, on average.

The Chamber’s legal filings supported at least one Fortune 500 company almost 60 percent of the time, but supported a small business only 7 percent of the time.

The Chamber filed a brief in support of foreign multinationals (57 times) almost twice as often as it did on behalf of domestic small businesses (29 times).

The No. 1 legal issue addressed by the Chamber was restricting consumer and small business access to the courts. The second and third were employment and labor relations issues and environmental issues, respectively.

The government agency that the Chamber most frequently opposed was the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 15 cases against the EPA, the Chamber was the plaintiff. It filed amicus briefs in cases against the EPA 11 times.

Ford was the company most frequently directly assisted by the Chamber. State Farm and Dow tied for second. ExxonMobil was third. Koch Industries and Bank of America tied for fourth.