Jackie Speier: “I thank the gentlewoman from Florida. I am going to end, Madam Speaker, with two cases because they are both egregious…”

“I thank the gentlewoman from Florida. I am going to end, Madam Speaker, with two cases because they are both egregious in their own right. One is about Irene Morissette, an 87-year-old Catholic nun. Now think about this for a minute. An 87-year-old Catholic nun was raped in her nursing home near Birmingham, Alabama. Police and medical records revealed a brutal attack. ``Police investigators found two semen stains in Morissette's bed and blood on the `inside rear area' of her green- and-pink-flowered pajama bottoms, which had been shoved underneath the mattress.'' Equally alarming was the article recalls how the medical examiner later wrote that Ms. Morissette was afraid to call anyone because she was afraid the assailant would be the one to come back to her room. Ms. Morissette told police in an interview several days after the attack that she felt like ``a piece of trash'' because she had honored her vow of chastity for over 6 decades and had lost something she had valued for her entire life. That one really breaks my heart. Due to a forced arbitration clause in the admissions contract she signed when she was admitted, Ms. Morissette was left with no choice. Her family could not pursue their claim in a public court of law, but was, rather, forced into arbitration. In the forced arbitration proceedings, the arbitrator invented outlandish arguments of hearsay and conjecture, including claims that Ms.…”