WASHINGTON - eTradeWire -- The District of Columbia has sued Amazon because it has caused slower delivery of merchandise ordered by some Prime customers residing in two predominantly Black areas of the city, and either did not tell these customers what it was doing and/or falsified the reasons for the delays.

Amazon does not dispute that it made changes in its delivery practices but says it did so because deliveries  created unreasonable risks to its drivers, and that customers in those zones were always told when their orders were likely to be delivered.

The problem, says public interest law professor John Banzhaf, is that the lawsuit under the District's Consumer Protection Procedures Act et seq. which prohibits only misrepresentations regarding commercial services, as well as any failure to disclose material facts.

So Amazon could easily correct the problem, and continue the very practices complained of, simply by making a simple disclosure such as:

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"Deliveries may sometimes take longer in a few neighborhoods where high crime rates create an unreasonable risk of harm to Amazon drivers." OR

"Residents in zip codes 20019 and 20020 may experience delivery delays because high crime rates have forced Amazon to utilize different delivery services."

In other words, even if the AG's lawsuit is successful, Amazon would still be able to continue this discriminatory practice which significantly delays deliveries to only those two areas which are predominantly Black.

A much better and more effective legal action against Amazon would be one brought under the District of Columbia Human Rights Act ("DCHRA"), D.C. Code §§ 2-1401.01, et seq. and its powerful and far reaching provision which prohibits any act or practice which has the "effect or consequence" of discriminating on the basis of race or other protected characteristics.

In other words, says law professor Banzhaf, who has won over 100 cases under this statute - including forcing the Cosmos Club to finally admit female members, dry cleaners to stop charging women more than men to launder shirts, hair cutters from charging women more than men for simple haircuts, excluding Black teens from a social program, and more - any practice which disproportionately harms African Americans, regardless of how logical or reasonable or otherwise justifiable it may seem, is prohibited as an illegal form of discrimination.

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So if Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb simply adds a count of race discrimination under the D.C. Human Rights Act to his current claim which is solely based upon consumer fraud and deception, he can bring effective relief to the thousands of Black voters, regardless of what disclosures Amazon may decide to make in response to his current pending law suit.

http://banzhaf.net/   jbanzhaf3ATgmail.com   @profbanzhaf