Texas Watch—Consumer Protection. Corporate Accountability. Citizen Advocacy.

You buy a cellphone, computer or car. You sign up for a credit card or open a retirement account. You apply for a job.

In all these circumstances, you’re told that you must agree to dozens of terms and conditions, set forth in technical verbiage and tiny print. Eager to complete your purchase — or desperate to be hired — you ultimately sign without reading.

If you’re lucky, nothing goes wrong. But a growing number of consumers and job seekers discover, when something does go wrong, that they have unknowingly agreed to waive their right to file a lawsuit. Instead, they must submit to arbitration.

Read More: The New York Times

The Texas Supreme Court has a profound effect on the everyday lives of Texans. It is the court of last resort for non-criminal matters in the state. But according to a scathing report released this week by the advocacy group Texas Watch, over the last 10 years, the majority of Texas Supreme Court decisions have favored corporate interests over consumers. And the panel of judges, according to the report, has repeatedly overstepped its authority by overturning jury verdicts and interpreting the law to benefit the rich.

Listen: Texas Public Radio (Texas Matters, Segment 3)

Last August, ThinkProgress highlighted a Texas Watch report showing that the Texas Supreme Court “sided with consumers in 27 percent of cases involving an individual against a corporation or government agency — and it reversed jury verdicts in 72 percent of cases.” A new report by that same organization shows that the court’s favoritism towards corporations is now even worse.

Read More: ThinkProgress

Listen to Court Watch director Alex Winslow talk about Court Watch’s latest report with Kristen Flowers of KTRH radio in Houston.

“Texas families deserve a fair shake when they go to the courthouse. And, when they make it to the highest court in the land, they’re just not getting that fair shake.”

Consumers who sign credit card agreements that feature an arbitration clause cannot dispute fees or charges in court, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday. The 8-to-1 decision drew immediate fire from consumer advocates.

To get a credit card, a consumer generally must sign a detailed agreement. In the fine print, almost always, is an arbitration clause that says that if consumers want to dispute fees, they must do so through arbitration, not in court.

A 1996 federal law allowed consumers to take their disputes to court. But in its ruling Tuesday, the Supreme Court said arbitration clauses in those agreements trump that law.

Read More: NPR

The question of how far companies can go in taking away their customers’ right to sue returned to the Supreme Court this week. The case involves a subprime credit card company called CompuCredit, which was sued by three customers in federal court for deceptive practices under the 1996 Credit Repair Organizations Act.

The company argued that they were barred from bringing lawsuits because their contract allowed them to enforce their rights only through arbitration, which prevents them from having their dispute resolved by an impartial judge and jury in a public court.

The act was passed to shield people from companies making bogus promises of credit repair. It says: “You have a right to sue a credit repair organization that violates” the act and a “waiver by any consumer of any protection” shall be “treated as void” and “may not be enforced by any federal or state court or any other person.” Despite that clear language, CompuCredit’s lawyer insisted that the wording is not “sufficiently explicit” to create a right to sue if a contract contains an arbitration clause.

Read More: The New York Times

Over the last decade, Texas politicians and lobbyists have enacted a series of devastating legal changes that severely restrict the legal rights of individuals, families, and small businessowners. These changes have made Texas a more dangerous place in which the value of accountability has been discarded.

Here are our picks for the Terrible Texas 5, a sampling of the worst of the corporate immunity agenda in our state. Read More »

Despite a professed desire to adhere to fundamental constitutional principles, Governor Rick Perry’s tenure has been marked by radical changes that arbitrarily and dangerously restrict the legal and constitutional rights of Texans of all walks of life, including patients, families, workers, homeowners, senior citizens, policyholders, and small business owners.  This report discusses the most notable of these statutory changes and details their devastating human cost, namely, how they have closed the courthouse door on many Texas families. Read More »

Today the jury reached its verdict in the Jamie Leigh Jones case. Ms. Jones fought for years to have her case heard by a jury of her peers in open court rather than in a secret binding arbitration proceeding.

The following is a statement from Alex Winslow, executive director of Texas Watch. Read More »