One of the most fundamental constitutional rights belonging to citizens of the United States is the right to a jury trial. Both the United States Constitution and the Missouri Constitution guarantee the right to a jury trial to every citizen, regardless of whether the trial is for a criminal charge or a civil case. (A […]
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Missouri Law On Punitive Damages
In Missouri, there are two general types of damages which a person filing a lawsuit can seek. The first is called “compensatory” damages. Compensatory damages, as its name implies, are designed to compensate the person for their actual losses. Examples of compensatory damages include the cost of repairing a vehicle involved in a crash. In […]
I’ve written before about how big financial institutions are doing everything they can to attack the newly created government agency designed to protect consumers, called the “Consumer Financial Protection Bureau” or “CFPB.” My earlier article can be read here. In a nutshell, these financial institutions fear that the agency will actually be effective at protecting […]
I’m happy to report that the Springfield News-Leader has published an Op-Ed piece I wrote explaining why it’s unfair to permit forced arbitrations in employment situations. That editorial can be found on the newspaper’s website here, but here’s the full text of what I wrote: Congress should pass The Arbitration Fairness Act of 2015 Robert […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a federal agency designed to protect average citizens from unfair business practices by big financial powerhouses, such as banks, brokerages and credit card companies. The CFPB recently announced that it is considering a groundbreaking move: banning arbitration clauses prohibiting class actions, because they allow companies to avoid accountability to […]
I’ve written before about how forced binding arbitrations are unfair and that contract provisions taking away citizens’ Constitutional right to jury trials should be outlawed. See my prior blog articles here and here. In Part II of its lengthy piece exposing the injustice involved in forced arbitration clauses entitled “Beware The Fine Print,” the New […]
I’ve written before about “binding arbitration” provisions and how unfair they are because they deprive people of their day in court. (See my blog entry here entitled “Forced Arbitration Clauses Should Be Outlawed”). The New York Times today published a significant article highlighting a new, devious twist on the usual binding arbitration provisions, one now […]
Most people are surprised when I tell them about by one of the biggest and most common problems faced by my clients: their doctor’s absolute refusal to give any testimony whatsoever. These are physicians who know firsthand that my client really was seriously injured, and know even better than I do how severely these injuries […]
One of the founding principles of the United States is trial by jury. Thomas Jefferson famously said: “I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.” Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Paine, 1789. I’ve written before about “arbitration […]
The American Civil Liberties Union has recently filed a lawsuit on behalf of three prisoners of the United States Central Intelligence Agency who had been subjected to the government’s “enhanced interrogation” program. The defendants in the lawsuit, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, are psychologists who allegedly designed and oversaw the CIA interrogation program. According to […]
