Corporate Court

By Ed Raymond
Staff Writer

The Best Corporate Legal Team Money Can Buy

We now have an amended Preamble to our Constitution, approved by five members of our nine-member Supreme Court. It now reads: “The corporations and the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The five conservative members of the Supreme Court decided that corporations can vote in all elections although our political system’s big rock is “one person, one vote.” Is a corporation a person? What is the conscience of a corporation? What does a corporation believe? What does a corporation desire? Money. What does a corporation think about? Money. How do you spill a cup of burning hot coffee on the crotch of a corporation? How do you compensate a corporation when a doctor cuts the wrong leg off that corporation? Can a corporation get an infection in a hospital’s operating room? Can a corporation get hurt when a gas pedal sticks or a burning Pinto gas tank ends up in the front seat of a corporation?

When our Constitution was ratified, corporations barely existed, but those that did had many civic interests. In the 21st Century, corporations have only one interest: absolutely maximizing shareholder returns for investors and corporate executives. Interest in civic matters? What did that civic-minded, business role-model Jack Welch say when he was CEO of General Electric? He wished he could place all of the manufacturing plants of GE on ocean-going barges so they could be towed to countries with the lowest labor wages.

Corporations are created by humans who attempt to collect great wealth – and then use it to gather even greater wealth. If corporations become destructive, persons, not corporations, have to have the ability to destroy or modify those corporations. Corporations have no vote. Why should they have any direct political rights bought with shareholder money representing diverse political interests? Think of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil,  “Kenny Boy” Lay’s Enron, Lehman bank, and Countrywide Financial.

Recent Legal Cases Won By The Best Five-Man Corporate Legal Team In The United States

The most recent egregious corporate court decision was the corporate legal team’s decision in 2000 to elect George W. Bush as president of the United States with a five-vote margin. Two faces were different from the present legal team: Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Rehnquist was a conservative politico who earned fame while young by attempting to keep Arizona blacks from using voting booths. O’Connor was what might be called a conservative-pragmatist, occasionally ending up on the “liberal” side on a 5-4 vote. However, she threw a royal hissy fit when it was erroneously reported that Al Gore had won Florida in 2000. She wanted to retire with a Republican president so a conservative would be appointed to replace her. She jumped at the chance to vote for Bush in Bush v. Gore when Justice Antonin Scalia put together a majority opinion based on factual error, faulty reasoning, and wishful thinking. That’s why the case will never be seen again in any precedent-setting decision. The Bush appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to replace the deceased Rehnquist and the retired O’Connor have added more reliable conservative votes to the corporate legal team.

There is no question that the most important political case in the last century was the Citizens United campaign cash case which turned corporations into “citizens.” Corporate money is pouring into political campaigns ranging from township to national elections, buying up radio., TV, and newspaper ad space to drown out substance and reason. The corporations can threaten any officeholders and drown them with money. And officeholders can seek bribes with relative impunity from corporations. The decision affects 308 million people directly. Scalia says “most corporations are indistinguishable from the individual who owns them.” I didn’t know corporations could have toenail fungus, sagging butttocks, and acne.

Who Protects The People?

Why should General Electric have more free speech rights and access to politicians than the maintenance man on the floor of a GE assembly line? Just in the last few months the best corporate legal team corporations can buy has supported the electoral politics, the wealthy, and the “perogatives” of business over the rights of consumers, workers, and individual citizens of the U.S.

Let’s start with the Walmart v. Dukes sex discrimination case rejected by the Court recently because the women suing “failed to point to companywide policies that had a common effect on all women covered by the lawsuit.” I have been keeping files on Walmart business practices since I read a 1988 study outlining how the “discount” corporation decimated Iowa small businesses, whether they were clothing, hardware, or bath and linens stores. The Walton family has become the richest family in the world with assets and cash of over $100 billion, hiring illegals and discriminating against women since their early stores in Arkansas.

For many years, Walmart has had about 6,000 active legal cases at any one time, with most involving unequal pay, rest periods, lunch breaks, and working off-the-clock. The corporate legal team of Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito, and Kennedy said the lawsuit involving potentially 1.5 million women did not have the “glue” to unite “all grievances.” Glue? All grievances? There are only two! Does that sound too complicated for all those smart justices to follow? The lawsuit was based on one simple fact: Women were discriminated against in promotions to higher-paying jobs and they were paid less than men. Man, is that complicated! No daubs of glue there! And all the men in managerial and executive jobs were all smarter than the stupid women they passed over! Previous court cases involving suits by women challenging Walmart’s promotion practices emphasize a strong corporate culture that “accepts” and judges women as being less competent. I guess that was emphasized when regional managerial meetings were often held at Hooter’s, to the embarrassment of the few women managers in attendance. That emphasizes the “Me, Tarzan! You, Jane!” complex that seems to fill WalMart offices.

Scalia: The Most Arrogant, Discriminating, and Ignorant Justice

The nine justices might have great difficulty in determining what is discrimination. After all, all nine justices are graduates of Harvard or Yale Law Schools, although there are about 20 law schools in the country that are considered “top.” Scalia is probably the most arrogant, discriminating, and ignorant justice on the court. He recently told a student at American University’s Law School that she would not be considered for a Supreme Court clerkship because, “by and large, I’m going to be picking from the law schools that basically are the hardest to get into. They admit the best and brightest…and if they come in the best and the brightest, they’re probably going to leave the best and brightest. OK?” Yep, like Clarence Thomas and Al Gore, right? By the way, Scalia has hired dozens of law clerks over the years.  Discriminating? You betcha. All very smart white folks.

The Walmart case could finally have put some teeth in the Equal pay Act passed in 1963. Bureau of Labor statistics of 2010 analyzed by Forbes Woman sales research proves that not much has been done in equalizing gender pay over 50 years.

Female financial advisors hold one-third of the positions in the financial field but earn only 58 cents for every dollar earned by men. Woman in securities and commodities sales earn only 63 percent as much as males in the field. Woman in retail sales earn 65 cents for every dollar earned by men, although they make up 42 percent of retail employees. Women make up a majority of insurance sales agents but make $324 less per week than males in the same field.

Women hold 70 percent of Walmart’s hourly jobs but only 33 percent of the managerial jobs. (Women hold only 33 percent of the jobs on the Supreme Court.)

By the way, 97 percent of the largest companies in the U.S. are run by men. And the research points out another important factor. Females salespersons who sell items with variable prices, such as cars and securities, tend to negotiate more mutually beneficial sales. This ability may cut in to initial profits slightly, but women end up creating loyal – and returning – customers.

On Cellphone Contracts And The Marketing of Drugs

Practically all cases involving business heard by the present Supreme Court have been decided in favor of corporate interests. The little guy without a big checkbook has little chance against the best corporate legal defense team in the country. Clarence Darrow was defending the Communist Labor Party in 1920 when he made this prescient statement: “The Constitution is a delusion and a snare if the weakest and humblest man in the land cannot be defended in his right to speak and his right to think as much as the strongest in the land.”

In the AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion case, Scalia and his four judges of the Apocalypse said that cellphone users were bound by arbitration clauses written in amazingly small fine print and incomprehensible legalese, even when state laws permitted consumers to bring class-action suits with many small-dollar claims against telephone companies. The New York Times described the AT&T decision as “a devastating blow to consumer rights.” A hundred years ago, Republican President Theodore Roosevelt warned that the courts had grown to a position of superiority: “Privilege has entrenched itself in many courts.” E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post raises this question: “What happens to a democracy when its highest court dedicates itself to defending privilege?”

How Many Read The Unintelligible Small Print At The Bottom Of Contracts And Ads?

Again, Scalia wrote the majority opinion in the arbitration case. He wrote that a federal law “encouraging” use of arbitration “trumps” any state laws aimed at preserving consumer rights. Consumer watchdogs said the decision in favor of AT&T “effectively eliminated” protections against tiny, incomprehensible legalese at the bottom of lengthy legalistic contracts. This California case was the conclusion of 34,000 arbitration cases filed with the National Arbitration Forum in four years. Consumers “won” only four percent of those cases. It looks as if corporations have “arbitrators” locked up in the boardroom. That’s why consumers banded together and tried to bring class-action suits against AT&T. Nan Aron of the Alliance for Justice was blunt in her criticism: “Through this ruling, the court’s ultra-conservative majority continues its relentless effort to shift power to corporate interests while hobbling the ability of everyday Americans to band together within the legal system to fight back against corporate misbehavior.”

Another 5-4 decision by the Scalia gang in favor of their corporate clients made it impossible for patients to sue generic-drug makers for failing to warn people of dangerous side effects – as long as their labels follow the brand-name counterpart, even if that label was “inadequate!” Gee, that sounds fair! The Roberts-Scalia court is bringing back the 19th Century “laissez faire” (Let The Buyer Beware!) doctrine of corporations that government should never interfere with commerce of any kind.

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