ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER
Bank Loans Often Contain Arbitration Clauses
Be Wary of Agreeing to Arbitration Clauses
Many banks include arbitration clauses in their loan contracts, but consumers should beware of agreeing to them, as that means giving up a number of your rights. If a customer agrees to an arbitration clause, procedural, pre-trial discovery, and appellate rights, their right to participate in a class action, and must instead resolve any disputes with arbitration. The constitutional right to a jury trial is provided to you by the Seventh Amendment, and by signing an arbitration agreement you are giving up that right. Our consumer fraud attorneys recommend crossing these sections out of any loan contracts before signing them. We can represent victims of fraud by banks when there is no arbitration clause, and help you recover any money lost, extra damages, and awards of attorneys’ fees and costs for bringing your action. Call us today at (415) 441-8669.
Once an arbitration agreement has been entered, it can be incredibly difficult to get out of, especially per 9 U.S.C. § 2, which holds that such agreements are valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, unless there are grounds to revoke the contract. One such method came as a result of Norcia v. Samsung Telecommunications America, LLC, 845 F.3d 1279 (9th Cir. 2017).[1] Under California law, contracts are enforceable only where there is mutual assent to be bound by the terms of the contract. The Ninth Circuit recognized that a consumer’s silence does not constitute acceptance. In lay terms, the point here is that the typical consumer, by buying a new phone or any other product, does not consent to all the clauses buried in a warranty or other contract included in the product package. The act of buying the phone is not acceptance of all the accompanying warranty provisions, including the arbitration provision. This rule does not always apply, especially in business transactions or individually negotiated contracts, but often holds in routine consumer/retailer transactions.
Contact Us
If you or a loved one has been a victim of any kind of consumer fraud or misrepresentation or securities fraud or misrepresentation and is headed to arbitration, including FINRA arbitration in San Francisco County or in any California county, contact the Evans Law Firm elder attorneys at (415) 441-8669, or by email at info@evanslaw.com. Our attorneys have experience with securities and financial fraud, annuity and insurance fraud and statutory violations by large insurance that means that in the event of any disputes, they give up their right to a jury trial, their companies. We can help guide your case through a jury trial, arbitration, FINRA arbitration or toward an equitable settlement. We also handle cases involving physical and financial elder abuse, qui tam and whistleblower law, nursing home abuse, whole life insurance and universal life insurance, and indexed, variable, and fixed annuities.
[1] Evans Law Firm, Inc. is not involved in the case in any way.
