4 Big Supreme Court Cases You Probably Haven’t Heard About
Consider Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, which the Court heard back in November. The basic question in the case is whether Congress may give individuals the right to sue for damages in federal court when a federal law has been violated. Spokeo involves a law enacted to prevent companies from disseminating false credit information, and that alone is reason enough for consumers to sit up and take notice. But the Court’s decision could affect numerous other laws that Congress has passed. The Framers of our Constitution created the federal courts to ensure that where there is a legal wrong, there is a place where people can go to get a legal remedy. If individuals can’t sue in court when they’ve been injured by a company’s violation of the law, it hurts not only that individual, but everyone else as well, because it decreases companies’ incentives to comply with the law. The Roberts Court has a bad track record when it comes to consumer rights, often siding with big business over the individual, but in two other consumer protection cases this term, the Court upheld the rights of the individual, suggesting that business interests may have finally asked the Court to go too far. Any day now we should find out whether business interests have done the same in Spokeo.
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