“It doesn’t take a lot to make me happy because I take pleasure from everything I do.”
— Dr. Oz
Binding Mandatory Arbitration (BMA) clause.
Why Should You sign a contract that contains a Binding Mandatory Arbitration (BMA) clause.
If you do you Give Away Your Constitutional Rights?
You are stripped of your rights every time you sign any type of contract that contains a Binding Mandatory Arbitration (BMA) clause.
And you have already signed many contracts containing BMA clauses. Each time you signed, you gave away your constitutional right to use the American court system to solve a disagreement, no matter how important the disagreement.
What is BMA (Binding Mandatory Arbitration)?
When a corporation includes a BMA requirement in its contracts, it means your dispute must be decided by a private legal system. Because BMA clauses are “binding,” you must abide by the decision and have no right to appeal.
This private, for-profit system is a lawless system. The judges, called arbitrators, do not have to follow the law or even justify their decisions.
takes away your right to appeal a bad decision
normally costs much more than using the courts
prevents you from being part of most class action lawsuits
favors business rather than you
Without knowing it, you may have already signed dozens of these clauses. They’re everywhere: health insurance contracts, telephone contracts, car contracts, rental clauses, babysitting clauses, credit cards, bank loans, nursing homes, summer camps, house repairs—you name it.
Virtually every major consumer group in America opposes Binding Mandatory Arbitration. See the groups and read many of their position papers.
What you can do. Take back your rights!
Do not sign a contract that contains a Binding Mandatory Arbitration
A little girl was observed by her pastor standing outside the pre-school Sunday School classroom between Sunday School and worship, waiting for her parents to come and pick her up for “big church.” The pastor noticed that she clutched a big storybook under her arms with the obvious title, “Jonah and the Whale.”
Feeling a little pernicious, he knelt down beside the little girl and began a conversation. “What’s that you have in your hand?”, he asked.
“This is my storybook about Jonah and the Whale,” she answered.
“Tell me something, little girl,” he continued, “do you believe that story about Jonah and that whale to be the truth?”
The little girl implored, “Why of course I believe this story to be the truth!”
He inquired further, “You really believe that a man can be swallowed up by a big whale, stay inside him all that time, and come out of there still alive and OK? You really believe all that can be true?”
She declared, “Absolutely, this story is in the Bible and we studied about it in Sunday School today!”
Then the pastor asked, “Well, little girl, can you prove to me that this story is the truth?”
She thought for a moment and then said, “Well, when I get to Heaven, I’ll ask Jonah.”
The pastor then asked, “Well, what if Jonah’s not in Heaven?”
She then put her hands on her little hips and sternly declared, “Then YOU can ask him!”