5 ms·

DoorDash drivers use arbitration clause to force DoorDash into arbitration

113 points by koolba 7y ago

teruakohatu 7y ago
Good ol' Judge William Alsup. His decisions are always fun to read. He was the judge that learnt how to code so he could understand the Google Oracle case. I wonder if consumers could use forced arbitration in the same way.
- tzs 7y ago
  > He was the judge that learnt how to code so he could understand the Google Oracle case. That's not actually true. He'd been coding since 1985 [1]. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-google-judge-william-alsup-interview-waymo-uber https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-googl...
  - technoplato 7y ago
    If you read until about right here, the parent comment is very valid. > “I couldn't have told you the first thing about Java before this trial,” said the judge Reading any past there sheds light on the judge.
    - tim333 7y ago
      Learned to code in Java I guess.
- imjustsaying 7y ago
  >I wonder if consumers could use forced arbitration in the same way. They can. Patreon is about to be hit really hard for playing thought policeman. https://www.cernovich.com/patreon-mandatory-arbitration/ https://www.cernovich.com/patreon-mandatory-arbitration/
  - heartbeats 7y ago
    I don't see why this is getting downvoted – it seems like a materially correct claim: > “You’re going to pay that money,” U.S. District Judge William Alsup said [to DoorDash] in court. “You don’t want to pay millions of dollars, but that’s what you bargained to do and you’re going to do it.” There really isn't much room for interpretation, is there? Patreon is a tiny company, $5 million is ~1% of their value. If nothing else it would cause trouble with the liquidity.
    - tzs 7y ago
      It's probably being down voted for a couple of reasons. 1. The claim in the link that Patreon banning someone from using them to receive funding is tortious interference with a business relationship giving the people who wanted to donate that person a cause of action is extremely tenuous at best. For an act to be tortious interference there has to be something wrong about that act other than just that it impacted the relationship between two other parties. For example, if Patreon decided to kick off all black creators, that would be wrong regardless of whether or not it impacted any business relationships between those creators and others. A claim for tortious interference might be viable. The bannings being complained about don't fall into any such protected category as far as I know. 2. The link is to a site that is generally unreliable. The author is a major pusher of conspiracy theories, pedophilia accusations, and the like which almost never stand up to scrutiny. For those rare things he publishes that are not those kind of things, there should always be a better source you can link to. No one has time to fact check every article they read, so you want to get your articles from places that are mostly right with at most a rare goof, not places that are the other way around. Many people down vote for linking to the later kind of site, even if the particular article is one of their rare reasonable ones, because it makes more work for the reader than linking to a better site would have.
      - heartbeats 7y ago
        That is absurd. If you can't be bothered to read the comment, why vote on it? If you can't be bothered to click the link and skim it over, then how does your opinion add anything of value to the site's ranking system it doesn't already know?
pyrosome 7y ago
In case anyone was wondering: > 5. How much does arbitration cost? > If the court orders a case to arbitration (following a stipulation or at the Case Management Conference), and the parties elect to use an arbitrator on the court's Arbitration Panel, the court pays the arbitrator ($150 for up to four hours and a maximum of $300 regardless of the number of arbitration sessions). > If the parties choose a private arbitrator, they will be required to pay the arbitrator's regular hourly rate and other charges. The market rates for private arbitrators can range from $200-$1,000 per hour. http://www.sdcourt.ca.gov/portal/page?_pageid=55,1555406&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&a=5#5 http://www.sdcourt.ca.gov/portal/page?_pageid=55,1555406&_da...
- redis_mlc 7y ago
  > If the court orders a case to arbitration If it's not by court order, but in the clause of a contract, then the company just never bothers to schedule the arbitration at all. That's actually going on with some companies. So no law suit and no arbitration. Win-win for the company.
  - pmiller2 7y ago
    Yep. Uber got some bad press for this a while ago.
  - rezgi 7y ago
    It's beautiful!
Nextgrid 7y ago
Always nice to see "move fast and break things" scum getting a bit of their own medicine.
- kmlx 7y ago
  > "move fast and break things" scum this is a gratuitous and useless slur.
  - tareqak 7y ago
    Which part is the slur? "move fast and break things" or "scum"?
  - Nextgrid 7y ago
    The slur seems totally justified considering the company is trying to exploit workers and uses the arbitration clause to prevent them from suing (though it now backfired on them). The sad part is that they're not alone. Most of these new "disruptive" startups are equally nasty.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      What other companies in the gig economy space might have their arbitration agreements weaponized against them?
    - blisterpeanuts 7y ago
      Phrases like "exploit workers" and "nasty" are judgements, not factual descriptions. Some argue that every employer since the beginning of history has been an exploiter. Others argue, you are a free agent and if you dislike the conditions of employment you can simply go elsewhere. This is particularly true in the highly fluid gig economy.
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        The state of California implemented AB5 to prevent further worker exploration perpetrated by gig economy companies. It stands to reason that the exploitation is not a judgment, but observable fact and therefore the impetus for the legislation I mention.
saltking112 7y ago
This is great news. Making it uneconomical for companies to enforce arbitration will be a big step in consumer/labor protection.
kabacha 7y ago
How is forced arbitration even legal? "all of the legal issues you might have with us must go through the private judge we choose"
- sneak 7y ago
  In theory, the parties both agree to arbitration and mutually waive their right to trial in the contract at the beginning, voluntarily, before any dispute arises. You're not forced to work for DoorDash in the first place, so it's not really forcing anyone. In theory.
  - zonethundery 7y ago
    'contract of adhesion' is the term of art here

113 points by koolba 7y ago

Good ol' Judge William Alsup. His decisions are always fun to read. He was the judge that learnt how to code so he could understand the Google Oracle case. I wonder if consumers could use forced arbitration in the same way.

tzs 7y ago
> He was the judge that learnt how to code so he could understand the Google Oracle case. That's not actually true. He'd been coding since 1985 [1]. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-google-judge-william-alsup-interview-waymo-uber https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-googl...
- technoplato 7y ago
  If you read until about right here, the parent comment is very valid. > “I couldn't have told you the first thing about Java before this trial,” said the judge Reading any past there sheds light on the judge.
  - tim333 7y ago
    Learned to code in Java I guess.
imjustsaying 7y ago
>I wonder if consumers could use forced arbitration in the same way. They can. Patreon is about to be hit really hard for playing thought policeman. https://www.cernovich.com/patreon-mandatory-arbitration/ https://www.cernovich.com/patreon-mandatory-arbitration/
- heartbeats 7y ago
  I don't see why this is getting downvoted – it seems like a materially correct claim: > “You’re going to pay that money,” U.S. District Judge William Alsup said [to DoorDash] in court. “You don’t want to pay millions of dollars, but that’s what you bargained to do and you’re going to do it.” There really isn't much room for interpretation, is there? Patreon is a tiny company, $5 million is ~1% of their value. If nothing else it would cause trouble with the liquidity.
  - tzs 7y ago
    It's probably being down voted for a couple of reasons. 1. The claim in the link that Patreon banning someone from using them to receive funding is tortious interference with a business relationship giving the people who wanted to donate that person a cause of action is extremely tenuous at best. For an act to be tortious interference there has to be something wrong about that act other than just that it impacted the relationship between two other parties. For example, if Patreon decided to kick off all black creators, that would be wrong regardless of whether or not it impacted any business relationships between those creators and others. A claim for tortious interference might be viable. The bannings being complained about don't fall into any such protected category as far as I know. 2. The link is to a site that is generally unreliable. The author is a major pusher of conspiracy theories, pedophilia accusations, and the like which almost never stand up to scrutiny. For those rare things he publishes that are not those kind of things, there should always be a better source you can link to. No one has time to fact check every article they read, so you want to get your articles from places that are mostly right with at most a rare goof, not places that are the other way around. Many people down vote for linking to the later kind of site, even if the particular article is one of their rare reasonable ones, because it makes more work for the reader than linking to a better site would have.
    - heartbeats 7y ago
      That is absurd. If you can't be bothered to read the comment, why vote on it? If you can't be bothered to click the link and skim it over, then how does your opinion add anything of value to the site's ranking system it doesn't already know?

pyrosome 7y ago

In case anyone was wondering: > 5. How much does arbitration cost? > If the court orders a case to arbitration (following a stipulation or at the Case Management Conference), and the parties elect to use an arbitrator on the court's Arbitration Panel, the court pays the arbitrator ($150 for up to four hours and a maximum of $300 regardless of the number of arbitration sessions). > If the parties choose a private arbitrator, they will be required to pay the arbitrator's regular hourly rate and other charges. The market rates for private arbitrators can range from $200-$1,000 per hour. http://www.sdcourt.ca.gov/portal/page?_pageid=55,1555406&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&a=5#5 http://www.sdcourt.ca.gov/portal/page?_pageid=55,1555406&_da...

redis_mlc 7y ago
> If the court orders a case to arbitration If it's not by court order, but in the clause of a contract, then the company just never bothers to schedule the arbitration at all. That's actually going on with some companies. So no law suit and no arbitration. Win-win for the company.
- pmiller2 7y ago
  Yep. Uber got some bad press for this a while ago.
- rezgi 7y ago
  It's beautiful!

Nextgrid 7y ago

Always nice to see "move fast and break things" scum getting a bit of their own medicine.

kmlx 7y ago
> "move fast and break things" scum this is a gratuitous and useless slur.
- tareqak 7y ago
  Which part is the slur? "move fast and break things" or "scum"?
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  The slur seems totally justified considering the company is trying to exploit workers and uses the arbitration clause to prevent them from suing (though it now backfired on them). The sad part is that they're not alone. Most of these new "disruptive" startups are equally nasty.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    What other companies in the gig economy space might have their arbitration agreements weaponized against them?
  - blisterpeanuts 7y ago
    Phrases like "exploit workers" and "nasty" are judgements, not factual descriptions. Some argue that every employer since the beginning of history has been an exploiter. Others argue, you are a free agent and if you dislike the conditions of employment you can simply go elsewhere. This is particularly true in the highly fluid gig economy.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      The state of California implemented AB5 to prevent further worker exploration perpetrated by gig economy companies. It stands to reason that the exploitation is not a judgment, but observable fact and therefore the impetus for the legislation I mention.

saltking112 7y ago

This is great news. Making it uneconomical for companies to enforce arbitration will be a big step in consumer/labor protection.

kabacha 7y ago

How is forced arbitration even legal? "all of the legal issues you might have with us must go through the private judge we choose"

sneak 7y ago
In theory, the parties both agree to arbitration and mutually waive their right to trial in the contract at the beginning, voluntarily, before any dispute arises. You're not forced to work for DoorDash in the first place, so it's not really forcing anyone. In theory.
- zonethundery 7y ago
  'contract of adhesion' is the term of art here