By F. Paul Bland On Twitter @PblandBland This is a classic good news/bad news type of case for plaintiffs. The good news is that a court struck down as unconscionable an arbitration clause that imposed enormous fees on an individual before the individual could go to arbitration. The bad news is that the case shows what a […]
Author Archives: Paul Bland
By Paul Bland, On Twitter @PblandBland This is a case with very painful facts – according to the complaint, a Kaiser patient went in to see his doctor and was told he had a particular type of cancer that his doctor wasn’t familiar with, but would do “internet research” about, that he might die within […]
By Paul Bland On Twitter: @PBlandBland In the wake of recent Supreme Court decisions, forced arbitration clauses are generally enforced unless a corporation sticks something particularly overreaching and unfair in its arbitration clause, or drafts an arbitration clause in an unusually stupid way. A U.S. district court in Nevada just found that Zappos did both […]
by Paul Bland On Twitter @PblandBland In Setlock v. Pinebrook, a Pennsylvania appellate court read a nursing home's arbitration clause to cover only the types of disputes named, refusing the home's invitation to re-write the clause more broadly. This is a tragic wrongful death and survivorship case, where nursing home personnel allegedly accidentally moved […]
By Paul Bland, Senior Attorney at Public Justice @PblandBland Periodically, people ask me rhetorical questions like, "How much worse can the law of arbitration get? I mean, it's so incredibly bad that it has to have bottomed out, right?" As Jane Wagner famously wrote, no matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep […]
by Paul Bland, Senior Attorney, Public Justice, Of Counsel, Chavez & Gertler On Twitter @PblandBland In Kennedy v. Wells Fargo, Judge King of the Southern District of Florida enforced another arbitration clause that tosses out consumer claims in the multi district litigation involving checking overdraft claims. The plaintiffs had several arguments that the particular arbitration clause at […]
By Paul Bland @PblandBland The last few years have often been pretty discouraging for consumer advocates who are trying to preserve their clients’ rights to take disputes to court. As the Supreme Court majority’s madcap love affair with forced arbitration just keeps getting more passionate (ick), courts at all levels seem to be enforcing […]
The plaintiffs make what sound like serious and detailed allegations involving price fixing against Travelocity (agreement not to resell hotel rooms below fixed price, most favored nation restrictions, etc.). But wait, you can guess what happens. Because, of course, Travelocity has a forced arbitration clause. The district court (N.D. Texas) decision finds that the arbitration […]