The article argues that America operates a "hidden justice system" through forced arbitration, where disputes are resolved privately by arbitrators often paid by the very companies being sued — a system the author compares to bribery.

Read the full article here at NYTimes.com: This is a summary of a Guest Essay from Brendan Ballou, a former federal prosecutor and the author of the forthcoming book “When Companies Run the Courts,” from which this essay is adapted.

The piece opens with Jeffrey Piccolo, whose wife died from an allergic reaction at a Walt Disney World restaurant. When he sued for negligence, Disney tried to push the case into arbitration, claiming he had agreed to it by subscribing to Disney+. This illustrates how everyday consumer agreements quietly strip people of their right to sue in open court.

The author contrasts arbitration with public courts: arbitration is secret, rarely appealable, and statistically favors corporations. Consumers win up to 89% of small claims court cases but only 21–33% in arbitration. Roughly 80% of Fortune 500 companies now use forced arbitration, and one provider alone handled 580,000 cases last year — more than the entire federal civil docket.

A key purpose, the author contends, is killing class-action lawsuits by forcing individual claims that are too small to pursue alone. The Supreme Court has steadily expanded arbitration's reach, even binding people who never explicitly agreed — like a Walmart shopper pulled in via a gig-work signup, or an employee who verbally rejected the policy but kept working.

The Trump administration has further weakened protections, including in nursing homes and IPOs. The author sees hope at the state level — citing California's Private Attorneys General Act — and argues that public awareness itself can pressure the Supreme Court, which research suggests is responsive to opinion on technical issues.