BILL NUMBER: S8137
SPONSOR: COMRIE
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the general business law, in relation to enacting the
"civil justice protection act"
 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:
This bill ensures that New Yorkers are not required to waive a series of
critical rights and procedures that have been long associated with New
York's fair and efficient civil justice system when purchasing goods and
services, including critical services such as health care services.
 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section one entitles this bill the "Civil Justice Protection Act."
Section two of the bill adds a new section 399-c to the General Business
Law that:
(1) Defines terms to be used in the new section 399-c.
(2) Prohibits any written contract for the sale and purchase of goods
that requires or has the effect of requiring a person who enters into
the contract to:
(i) adjudicate a related dispute in New York in a forum located in a
state other than New York or in a foreign country;
(ix) adjudicate a related dispute that arises from an act occurring in
New York pursuant to the law of a state other than New York or pursuant
to the law of a foreign country;
(x) release any person from liability in a potentially covered dispute;
(xi) waive or limit the right to a jury trial to adjudicate a covered
dispute;
(xii) waive or limit the right of a person to participate in a class
action, collective action, or representative action to adjudicate a
covered dispute;
(xiii) waive or limit the ability of a person to obtain discovery from a
party or witness as provided by the New York Civil Practice Law And
Rules in a civil action to adjudicate a covered dispute;
(xiv) shorten or limit the statute of limitations applicable to a
covered dispute that is otherwise established by New York law; or
(xv) limit or restrict the availability of a person to obtain damages or
civil penalties in a civil action to adjudicate a cover0d)dispute,
including but not limited to an action filed under section 349'of the
General Business Law.
(3) Ensures that a violation of the section results in the nullification
of the offending provision in any contract; imposes a civil penalty on
businesses for violations to be enforced by the Attorney General; and
makes an exception for post-dispute settlement agreements.
Section two of the bill also contains a severability clause.
Section three of the bill states that the act shall take effect imme-
diately and only apply to contracts entered into after the effective
date of this legislation.
 
JUSTIFICATION:
Businesses across the state are increasingly requiring New Yorkers to
waive and limit their rights to access and utilize New York's civil
justice system in a plethora of ways as a condition of purchasing goods
and services, including the purchase of necessary and lifesaving medical
services. Businesses are doing this by slipping such waivers and
restrictions in long written contracts or click-through agreements on
websites and smartphones that, by all accounts, few, if any, read.
New York State has a public policy interest in ensuring that its citi-
zens do not accidentally or ignorantly waive their rights to resolve
disputes in a fair or efficient manner when they purchase goods or
services.
Further, wrongdoing against New Yorkers as a whole cannot be discovered,
exposed, publicized when individual residents must adjudicate their
individual disputes in another state or a foreign country; when they
cannot initiate or participate in a class action; when they cannot use
civil justice procedures to discover wrongful conduct; when they must
bring a dispute in a private, secret forum; when they must forfeit the
right to a jury trial; and when they cannot seek redress for injuries at
all.
This bill thus secures critical and long-established legal rights and
procedural protections of New Yorkers who may be financially or
personally injured in connection with the purchase of goods and
services.
An individual, of course, can waive these rights and protections. But
doing so should not be a requirement to participate in modern commercial
society or to receive critical services such as health care services.
And the proliferation of businesses imposing this ancillary requirement
on individual New Yorkers - who simply want to purchase goods and
services -- is leading to the spread and permanence of societal ills and
harms that threaten us all.
Thus, the bill is necessary to ensure that frauds, dangerous goods,
services delivered in a negligent or wrongful manner, and other harms
and injuries in connection with the purchase of such goods and services,
are discovered, exposed, publicized to the public and to government
officials -- and stopped.
 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
New bill.
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS FOR STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS:
N/A
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
Immediate.