Discrimination - at EBAY?

[jennipop62]

Any knowledge as far as discrimination law? In particular, mental illness, depression, ADD/ADHD, etc. Thanks!

[Modee]

Discrimination in what? Employment? Access to public bathrooms? What I mean is - the answer depends. But in general if something affects interstate commerce or an inalienable or fundamental right (which amounts to the same thing), similarly situated people cannot be treated differently.

[Sake-Pookie]

Discrimination in what? Employment? Access to public bathrooms? What I mean is - the answer depends. But in general if something affects interstate commerce or an inalienable or fundamental right (which amounts to the same thing), similarly situated people cannot be treated differently.

Wouldn't ebay's biased and prejudiced feedback system be just this?

[Modee]

Well you'd think so, but it's a lot more complicated than that. This is essentially a Constitutional Law discussion.

The Constitution applies only to government action. Private conduct need not comply with the Constitution. Ebay is a private company, so if there is discrimination going on there, it is not protected by the Constitution.

There are notable exceptions though - where a Congressional statute may apply constitutional norms to private conduct. One example is where the private discrimination affects interstate commerce. Then, through a Congressional statute, even private action can be deemed to be de facto government action.

The classic example of course was some restaurant in the south that refused to serve African Americans. Well, the restaurants argued that they were private actors and could do whatever they wanted. But then - forbidding certain people from restaurants could keep them from traveling, and thereby affect interstate commerce. So then Congress was able to keep discrimination from restaurants due to its commerce power.

There is also the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, that proscribes private race discrimination.

There are all sorts of interesting due process and equal protection arguments that might be made, some weak, some maybe stronger, if we could get past the "state action" (a.k.a. "government action") initial barrier, but rather than get into all that - let's just say that you do not have a fundamental right to be on EBAY anyway, so even if EBAY's taking this away from you could be construed as state action, as long as they did it via some rules that were rationally related to a legitimate purpose, they could get away with it.

Now, if EBAY started discriminating based on race, sex, gender, religion, etc., then yes the discrimination statutes would apply. But they do not discriminate based on that - they will can you no matter what race, sex, gender, religion you are!

All that aside - I AGREE WITH YOU - Ebay is getting away with murder. But if anyone is going to sue them successfully, it will have to be based on violations of EBAY's own terms of service, or some kind of violation of the inherent covenant of good faith and fair dealing that is implied in all contracts.