[kiskis]

I'm from Europe and I don't really getting it.

If you start a class action lawsuit, the best thing PayPal can do is to sue you for contractual non-performance. At least in Europe, even if the contract say that you won't file a lawsuit, the court will throw that part of contract out, usually for constitution terms.

So is this legal in the US? How many of your constitutional rights can you give up in a contract in the US?

[aidenn0]

IANAL, but while you cannot totally give up your right to sue, you can voluntarily restrict it.

For example, you can agree to resolve disputes in binding arbitration, and then you could only sue on the grounds that the arbitration was in some way unfair.

Similarly you can agree to not take part in a class-action suit, while still being allowed to sue as an individual.

Now that only applies to contracts that are negotiated. Contracts of adhesion (a non-negotiable contract when there is a disparity of power, like an EULA between you and Microsoft) have a lot more restrictions.

It looks like Pay Pal is trying to get around this by allowing users to opt-out, thus making it negotiable. I'm not sure if there is precedent for that. Those who are actually lawyers might know.

[DannyBee]

To put it simply, class action lawsuits have never been a constitutional right in the US.

In fact, in the US the notion of class action lawsuits and the rules around them were completely imported into US law (in a very weird way) by the judiciary. Even then they were skeptical.

Wikipedia actually has a reasonable history of what happened here in the US (or at least, it is similar to what i learned in law school).

You aren't actually contracting away any constitutional rights here, which is one reason why they allow it (though you can actually contract away constitutional rights in some cases)

Even the binding arbitration part is allowed, as per the Federal Arbitration Act (which has been upheld several times).

You can appeal the arbitration, just not on most substantive grounds (which sucks, but c'est la vie).

[rayiner]

> So is this legal in the US? How many of your constitutional rights can you give up in a contract in the US?

In the US, the general rule is that you can give up your Constitutional rights via contracts. It's, e.g., the basis for our criminal justice system, where plea bargaining (which is the criminal analogue of a civil settlement contract) is used in almost all cases despite a Constitutional right to a jury trial.

[andyjohnson0]

"In the US, the general rule is that you can give up your Constitutional rights via contracts"

Thats astonishing.

I see from your profile that you are a lawyer, so I'll ask. Are there any limits to the rights a person give can give up? Could they, for example, voluntarily sign a contract that irrevocably places them in servitude to someone else (13th amendment)?