Suppose you buy a new house that turns out to be plagued by toxic mold. The home builder refuses to make repairs. You want to sue, but you learn that the fine print of your purchase contract requires you to arbitrate your dispute.

It also requires you to cough up an enormous fee – let’s say $50,000 – before going to arbitration. And, worst of all, it turns out that the arbitrator works for the local association of home builders. He gets paid by the home builders and he relies on their repeat business. The deck is stacked against you.

Outrageous, right? Under current law, consumers and workers can go to court and ask a judge to find the arbitration agreement “unconscionable” and therefore unenforceable.

But depending how the U.S. Supreme Court rules in Rent-A-Center v. Jackson, which it hears April 26, consumers and workers might not have that option much longer. Instead, guess who would rule on whether the arbitration clause was too outrageous to enforce?

The company’s arbitrator.

That's right. The question presented to the Supreme Court in Rent-A-Center is, essentially: Can a corporation’s hand-picked arbitrator decide whether it is fair for the company to hand-pick its arbitrator?

A conflict of interest? You bet. And given that research shows arbitration overwhelmingly favors the company over the consumer, this tightening of the rules would give Corporate America yet another advantage over consumers, employees, franchisees and others who sign arbitration clauses, often without even realizing it. Citizens would have no other place to turn.

Recently, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court dramatically expanded corporate rights. In decreeing that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections, the court in January upended a century of precedent and gave corporations a much bigger voice in government than “We, the People.”

Now, in Rent-A-Center, the court could again stack the deck in the battle between average citizens and powerful corporations. The court is expected to issue a decision by the end of June.

Many others are concerned about the outcome of this case; a broad coalition of civil rights groups, labor unions and consumer advocacy organizations – everything from Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the National Women’s Law Center to Consumer Action) – have filed friend-of-the-court briefs. Even 23 prominent professional arbitrators and arbitration scholars, including arbitrators for Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association, agree that arbitrators shouldn’t decide whether the arbitration process itself is fair. Instead, they say, courts must step in to prevent abuses.

via Commentary: Will the Supreme Court let corporate America judge itself? | McClatchy.