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Legal question: is there an argument to be made that the arbitrator did not behave as a neutral third party (assuming that's the definition of arbitrator in you
by Cpoll 2y ago
Legal question: is there an argument to be made that the arbitrator did not behave as a neutral third party (assuming that's the definition of arbitrator in your jurisdiction), and thus the contract has been breached and you're open to sue? I know that sounds Quixotic.
- jordanb 2y agoThe current supreme court loves arbitration so I highly doubt that would work.
- wbl 2y agoCongress, not the supreme court, passed a law favoring arbitration clauses in consumer contracts.
- rendaw 2y agoAccording to this, the supreme court ruled in favor of forced arbitration: https://www.aclu.org/news/womens-rights/supreme-court-favors-forced-arbitration-expense-workers https://www.aclu.org/news/womens-rights/supreme-court-favors... Do you have more details?
- throwaway48476 2y agoIf congress passed a law saying arbitration was illegal the court would have to abide by it. The court has only gotten more power because of a dysfunctional and gridlocked congress.
- eadler 2y agoThe Court, not Congress, favoured arbitration over court in consumer contracts. Arbitration, when passed, was designed for contract disputes between merchants, not statutory claims or between entities of unequal bargaining power. In fact members of Congress expressly disavowed touching either consumer or employment contracts - and even went so far as to make that explicit with respect to employment.
- wbl 2y agoThen why did congress pass https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/9/2 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/9/2 which doesn't exclude any of the things you claim were excluded?
- eadler 2y ago"but nothing herein contained shall apply to contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers ...." was specifically intended to exclude all employment contract. It was the Court, in Circuit City v. Adams, incorrectly, claimed that ejusdem generis applied here. Please see for further details: Sternlight, J. R. (2005). Creeping Mandatory Arbitration: Is It Just? Scholarly Works, 57(280), 1631–1676. pp 1631 Cain, R. M. (1988). Commercial Disputes and Compulsory Arbitration. The Business Lawyer, pp 65 Cohen, J. H., & Dayton, K. (1926). The New Federal Arbitration Law. Virginia Law Review, 12(4), 265–286. https://doi.org/10.2307/1065471 https://doi.org/10.2307/1065471 pp 265 Stone, K. V. W. (2018). Rustic Justice: Community and Coercion under the Federal Arbitration Act [Preprint]. LawArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31228/osf.io/6g7e3 https://doi.org/10.31228/osf.io/6g7e3 §IV.F pp 987-991 For all references: https://arbitrationinformation.org/docs/references/ https://arbitrationinformation.org/docs/references/
- wbl 2y agoCongress could have said "shall apply to contracts of employment." Because they listed some specific then the general, the Court said that we don't read the general to expand beyond the specific examples much. Congress can of course pass a law if the court got it wrong to clarify the construction.
- eadler 2y agoYou're correctly understanding the mistake the court made. The principle does not normally apply in this context under ordinary rules of statutory interpretation. I even gave you a source from the author of the law itself. You are correct that congress can fix the issue. Due to deadlock and a lack of care they have not.
- watwut 2y agoYeah, but supreme court is modifying, twisting and reinterpreting those laws based on their own political agendas. Which in this case happens to be pro-arbitration.
- kmeisthax 2y agoSo, in real civil court, there's a thing called discovery which lets both sides demand evidence from one another with the force of law. Such a thing is not guaranteed to be available in arbitration, and in order for civil disputes to be decided even remotely fairly, you have to have the ability to pull evidence from the other side. Otherwise it's just "he said, she said" which will go in favor of whoever is bringing in the arbitrator more business.
- nyclounge 2y agoArbitration seems just another way for big corp to weasel their way out of their obligations and responsibilities to consumers. See Hot Coffee Documentary [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Coffee_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Coffee_(film)
- sjtgraham 2y agoBoth JAMS and AAA allow for discovery.
- singleshot_ 2y agoWell here’s a question, then: do the AAA commercial rules mandate that one or both parties must be subject to discovery? (Answer: they do not. They allow the Arbitrator to force discovery, but it is not mandated).