![]() ![]() To some degree legislators have agreed with them. And that’s been true in some abusive disputes such as asbestos litigation. Corporations see themselves as victims of overzealous (read ambulance chasing) lawyers. For decades, the corporate bar and the tort bar - which handles personal injury and class action cases - have been a war over who can sue and under what conditions. ![]() You got a beef over yogurt, let’s go to arbitration. The company says its health and nutrition claims are correct - and doesn’t see why it should be subject to a class action claim. Consumers in Florida and California, for instance, sued the company over health benefit claims made by its Yoplait YoPlus and Nature Valley products. (Oddly enough, I found a New York state court case in which General Mills sued to void a mandatory arbitration clause in a contract it had with another company.)īut what’s outrageous here is that General Mills seems to be seeking shelter from class action or consumer advocate cases even if it engages in bad corporate behavior: violating nutritional labeling laws, say. And it’s common among corporations, too, which makes sense if they want to avoid litigation. If you lost a lot of money because your broker sold you risky junk bonds when you thought you’d be getting safer treasury bonds, any dispute coming out of it goes to arbitration. It’s part of every brokerage agreement, for instance. “General Mills is proud to market some of the world’s most-trusted brands,” the company says in the introduction to this fine print.įorced arbitration isn’t all that unusual. Sure seems like Big Business operating in a this-is-why-we- hate-them-model, with the corporate legal department playing its traditional starring role. ![]() So downloading a 50-cent-off coupon on your next purchase of Hamburger Helper discounts your legal recourse. You are required to deal with the company in a private arbitration - hey, Mills will even pick up the cost. If the Bisquick hits the fan, in other words, you can’t go running to court. Parsing General Mills’s privacy and legal sections will cost you about 7,000 words of reading time, but the operative ones are as follows: “These terms are a binding legal agreement (‘Agreement’) between you and General Mills.” You probably didn’t think that buying a pint of Häagen-Dazs vanilla would imply a contractual obligation on your part. #NATURE VALLEY CLASS ACTIO DOWNLOAD#As the New York Times pointed out in a delightful piece of reporting, if you so much a download a coupon from the General Mills website it’s the equivalent, in the company’s view, of signing a contract that prohibits you from suing or joining a class action suit against it. Which is part of the explanation of why General Mills, the owner of popular brands such as Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, Green Giant, Nature Valley, Yoplait, Old El Paso, and Progresso, has changed the legal terms for using its web site, or even buying one of its products. ![]()
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