We also find the prohibition of class arbitration to be substantively unconscionable. The most that the plaintiff or any other similarly situated consumer could hope to recover in an action of this nature is $150. The cost of retaining an attorney and filing an individual claim either in court or before an arbitrator would exceed the potential recovery. Filing an individual claim in small claims court would be nearly as unhelpful. The cost of filing alone would offset a significant portion of any potential recovery, which would be further offset by any costs incurred in presenting the claim and any lost wages for taking time from work to do so. In essence, consumers in the plaintiff's position are left without an effective remedy in the absence of a mechanism for class arbitration or litigation. Thus, this case presents "the classic class action lawsuit in which those allegedly injured would be economically prohibited from ever vindicating their rights in separate lawsuits." Hanke, 335 Ill. App. 3d at 1170, 782 N.E.2d at 333; see also Deposit Guaranty National Bank v. Roper, 445 U.S. 326, 339, 63 L. Ed. 2d 427, 440, 100 S. Ct. 1166, 1174 (1980) ("Where it is not economically feasible to obtain relief within the traditional framework of a multiplicity of small individual suits for damages, aggrieved persons may be without any effective redress unless they may employ the class-action device"); Leonard v. Terminix International Co., L.P., 854 So. 2d 529, 536 (Ala. 2002) (noting the "plentiful *** cases from the United States Supreme Court recognizing the importance of relief by way of a class action").

Not only does the prohibition effectively preclude consumers from seeking remedies, the limitation is one-sided. We find the well-reasoned opinion of the California Court of Appeal in Szetela v. Discover Bank, 97 Cal. App. 4th 1094, 118 Cal. Rptr. 2d 862 (2002), persuasive in this regard. There, consumers brought a putative class action alleging that their credit card company had breached its contract with them and engaged in fraud by improperly charging them a fee of $29 for exceeding their credit limits. Szetela, 97 Cal. App. 4th at 1097, 118 Cal. Rptr. 2d at 864-65. One of the named plaintiffs appealed a trial court order granting the credit card company's motion to compel arbitration. He argued that the provision against class actions was unconscionable. Szetela, 97 Cal. App. 4th at 1099, 118 Cal. Rptr. 2d at 866. The court agreed, explaining, "The manifest one-sidedness of the no[-]class[-]action provision at issue here is blindingly obvious." Szetela, 97 Cal. App. 4th at 1100, 118 Cal. Rptr. 2d at 867.

a matter of trust    There is more to corporate performance than what you see in the earnings reports. Could an investor have anticipated the trouble at companies like Enron, Adelphia, WorldCom and Tyco by looking more closely at how they were governed and how they kept their books? Their problems are far more visible in hindsight, but each left telltale signs that all was not well.  3/6/2005