By Jean Sternlight ( September 25, 2017, 12:02 AM EDT) -- Sept. 25 is the anniversary of Congress' passage of the Seventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which provides a right to jury trial in civil cases. That right is increasingly in jeopardy, as the fine print of contracts from many banks, nursing homes, for-profits schools, credit monitoring services and other companies strip away our day in court. Forced arbitration clauses, typically coupled with class action bans, prevent Americans from accessing courts or banding together in group litigation when companies violate the law. Instead, no matter how many people have been harmed, such clauses usually require people to go it alone before a private arbitrator, typically chosen by the company, in a secretive proceeding with virtually no right of review....