Consumer law is a vast field that can involve anything from representing clients who were deceived by fraudulent advertising to protecting borrowers from unscrupulous lenders. At the heart of consumer law is a passion for helping people.

At Simon Passanante some of our most satisfying cases involve helping consumers get back money that was taken from them illegally. We have handled class actions against health insurance companies and HMO’s for miscalculation of percentage co-payments for health insurance. We have handled consumer class actions for misrepresentations in selling various products and services relating to automobiles, health and life insurance. We have also handled cases involving the financial sector, including mortgage companies.

Individual Cases
Often the damages that one consumer has suffered, and the facts involved in the case, make a traditional individual lawsuit the best idea for our clients. Individual cases can involve almost anything. Sometimes mortgage lenders deceive borrowers, other times manufacturers misrepresent the product they sell. A promise that a medicine is “scientifically proven to reduce fat” might not be true at all, or a salesperson at a local car dealership may fail to tell a consumer that the odometer has been “rolled back.” Whatever the case may be, at Simon Passanante we have the experience and resources to handle consumer fraud cases successfully.

Class Action Cases
Sometimes the best way to help our clients and to hold businesses accountable is to file a class action. Class actions were designed to help consumers join together in situations in which many consumers have been harmed by similar or identical activities. Class actions can be invaluable for consumers. This is true because sometimes the damages to an individual consumer are very low, but the illegal gains to the company are significant. For example, if a phone company included an extra one dollar charge on every customer’s build, any individual customer would only lose $12 a year, but the phone company, with thousands, or millions of customers, could make millions of dollars illegally.

An individual would almost never sue for $12. The time and expense would be too much, and as a result, if the only option were an individual case, many wrongs committed by companies would never be pursued. This is where the class action can be very helpful. In a class action, one consumer can represent all the other consumers in a single case.

In the phone company example above, one consumer could sue the company and serve as the “class representative” for all other customers who got cheated. If the case were “certified” as a class, the defendant would be potentially liable for all the money taken from all the customers. If a jury or the court found that the defendant had acted illegally, the recovery would then be shared with all of the people in the class. Most of the members of the class would never have to go to court and would never have to spend one penny to protect their rights. In other words, as stated by the United States Supreme Court, “A significant benefit to claimants who choose to litigate their individual claims in a class-action context is the prospect of reducing their costs of litigation, particularly attorney’s fees, by allocating such costs among all members of the class who benefit from any recovery.”

Arbitration Clauses
Increasingly, businesses are including language in their contracts with consumers that require the consumers to resolve any disputes they have with the defendant in arbitration rather than court. This is called an “arbitration clause.” If an arbitration clause is included in a contract, it sometimes means the consumer must go to an arbitrator to resolve his or her claim.

An arbitrator is an individual who is not a judge, but has the power, under the contract, to determine the rights of the consumer. The arbitrator can award damages like a court, but holds a hearing that is usually less formal. An arbitrator’s decision is subject to very minimal review by courts.

Unfortunately, in the last ten years many businesses have begun to use arbitration clauses as a way to deny consumers their rights, even where the business practices are flagrantly in violation of the law. Some businesses include a “class action and class arbitration waiver” in the arbitration clause. This clause makes the consumer promise that no matter how small their damages are, or how many others have the same problem, they cannot file a class action or class arbitration.

If such an arbitration clause were enforced, a consumer who has been cheated out of only one dollar would have to file an arbitration, miss work and often pay an attorney to try to get the dollar back. He or she could not, according to the arbitration clause, file a class action in which they join with other consumers who have also been cheated out of the dollar. As one can guess, if the defendant’s arbitration provision is enforced, a defendant could go on ripping off consumers forever. Who would spend all the money and time required to get only one dollar back?

Fortunately, federal and state law does not always uphold such arbitration clauses If the court finds that such a clause is unfair (“unconscionable”), it can refuse to enforce the arbitration clause, allowing the consumer to proceed with an individual or a class action. The courts thus serve as the protector of consumers by making sure defendants can’t grant themselves immunity from the law by the use of unconscionable arbitration clauses.

At Simon Passanante we have the expertise to challenge unfair arbitration clauses. Although the fight is often a difficult one, we think it is worth the effort. We will continue to work to make sure consumers get the protection they deserve.

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