Courts

Federal Judge Remembers South Park Episode Very Differently

Bad things can happen to you if you don't read service agreements.

By  
on

Now that the Supreme Court has thrown its hearty embrace around the right of asymmetrical actors to enter agreements robbing the weaker party of their basic rights, it’s definitely passé to worry about the rights virtually every American signs away every day by mere virtue of owning a cell phone. Those onerous customer agreements always lock consumers into binding arbitration. But we already knew phone cusotmers were permanently screwed by the Concepcion decision.

In a recent decision regarding a compelled arbitration clause in the fine print of a convoluted Verizon agreement, Judge Roberta Colton, a Bankruptcy Judge in the Middle District of Florida, expressed the frustration all of us with a passing understanding of basic fairness feels when it comes to clauses like this:

Although the court is skeptical that the arbitration agreement between Mr. Bateman and Verizon truly is a negotiated contract within the meaning of a statute enacted in 1925, particularly since Verizon can unilaterally change any term at any time, the Supreme Court does not distinguish between consumer and commercial arbitration…

Yeah. That certainly isn’t what Congress would have intended, but looking at legislative intent is for wusses! But Judge Colton knows her hands are tied. Speaking of being unnaturally bound… here’s the pop culture reference she evoked to bring this unfortunate quirk of the law to life. In footnote 37, she notes:

The court is reminded of an episode from the cartoon series “South Park” in which Apple comes to town and demands blood from iPhone customers because a provision to give up your blood was buried in the consumer service agreement that everyone in South Park had agreed to by simply clicking a box, but of course never read. (Trey Parker, 15 HumancentiPad South Park (2011)).

Um. That’s not really the takeaway from that episode. My recollection of that episode isn’t so much about taking everyone’s blood — in fact, a key element of that episode is the fact that no one in South Park had signed the service agreement except Kyle. And what Kyle learned, to his horror, is that this contract of adhesion quite literally adhered him to the anus of another careless Apple user in a human centipede. Like this:

Sponsored

So, did Judge Colton self-censor her opinion by delivering a false narrative of South Park history? Perhaps shielding us from the mental anguish of having to consider “cuttlefish” again (you know what that means if you’ve seen this episode)?

Or maybe she really doesn’t remember it. Which would be a shame, because perhaps if Judge Colton remembered the episode more accurately, she’d have felt more emboldened to break with precedent to protect the poor defendant before he ended up another cruel experiment in Verizon’s dungeon.

(Read the full opinion on the next page…)

HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

Sponsored

1 2Next »

Topics

, , , , ,