Richard Frankel of Drexel has written Corporate Hostility to Arbitration, 50 Seton Hall Law Review (forthcoming 2020). Here is the abstract: In the last 30 years, corporations have aggressively and successfully pushed the Supreme Court to invalidate virtually all state regulation of mandatory arbitration clauses on the ground that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) preempts any […]
Category Archives: Arbitration
Imre S. Szalai of Loyola of New Orleans has written The Prevalence of Consumer Arbitration Agreements by America’s Top Companies, 52 U.C. Davis L. Rev. Online 233 (2019). Here is the abstract: This article present the results of a study that examines the use of arbitration agreements by the top 100 Fortune Magazine-ranked largest domestic […]
Andrea Chandrasekher and David Horton, both of California, Davis, have written Arbitration Nation: Data from Four Providers, 109 California Law Review. Here's the abstract: Forced arbitration has long been controversial. In the 1980s, the Supreme Court expanded the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), sparking debate about whether private dispute resolution is an elegant alternative to litigation or a rigged […]
by Jeff Sovern So Allison Frankel reports for Reuters in a story headlined Fitbit lawyers reveal ‘ugly truth’ about arbitration, judge threatens contempt. Here are the first three paragraphs: At a hearing Thursday in San Francisco federal court, a lawyer for the fitness tracking company Fitbit told U.S. District Judge James Donato that no rational customer would arbitrate a $162 […]
David L. Noll of Rutgers has written Public Litigation, Private Arbitration? 18 Nev. L.J. 477 (2018). Here is the abstract: How should legal disputes be allocated between litigation and arbitration? Given strong incentives for many actors to arbitrate everything, the question turns fundamentally on the scope of arbitration under the applicable law. In "Re-Inventing Arbitration: How Expanding the […]
by Jeff Sovern Industry lawyer Thomas B. Hudson of Hudson Cook has authored Arbitration Agreements: Not Always Good All the Time for AutoDealer Today, in which he writes: An arbitration agreement is the dealer’s first and best line of defense against class-action lawsuits. If you think that isn’t reason enough, have a word with the many […]
by Jeff Sovern One of my students told me about Tinder's new retroactive arbitration clause which, of course, includes a class action waiver. As with many such contracts, consumers accept it by using the service, regardless of whether they have read it or not–and we know few consumers actually read such things. The arbitration clause, […]
Here. Here's more from The Hll and here is David Dayen writing at The Nation.
by Jeff Sovern Level Playing Field is reporting that companies include in their arbitration clauses provisions that AAA, their arbitration service, has informed them have to be waived, meaning AAA won't enforce them. The clauses in question may deter consumers, who don't know that they won't be enforced, from bringing the arbitration at all. For […]
David Horton of California, Davis has written Clause Construction: A Glimpse into Judicial and Arbitral Decision-Making, Duke Law Journal, Vol. 68, Forthcoming. Here is the abstract: For decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has insisted that forcing a plaintiff to arbitrate — rather than allowing her to litigate — does not affect the outcome of a dispute. […]