An imbalance in access to remedies is how you get situations like that armored bulldozer in Colorado smashing buildings, or office shootings. The supreme court justices are too far tilted to the right, hopefully this will change in a decade or two.
From the article:
> the judge ruled that Encore’s lawsuit to collect the debt was separate from Ms. Thompson’s case accusing the company of violating the law.
Disregarding the fact that the original judge should not have awarded a debt that was past SOL, it seems perfectly reasonable to me that Encore taking action to collect a debt it purchased is a separate legal question from a claim that Encore is violating the law. I'm not saying they are related of course, but I have a feeling the arbitration agreement is pretty clear that if you want to sue Encore you have to use arbitration.
The reason that corporations like binding arbitration is that it eliminates the jury, and gets rid the option of the jury nullifying the law. Sometimes onerous laws get bought and paid for by corporations, and jury nullification is one of the few tools left to combat this.