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The Truth About Forced Arbitration -- the real story emerges from data from the arbitration companies themselves

9/10/2019

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Forced arbitration is a rigged system designed by corporations in which injured workers and consumers have no meaningful chance of finding justice.

Forced arbitration requires Americans to “agree” to surrender fundamental constitutional rights – often without ever realizing they’ve done so.

When corporations harm workers and consumers by cheating, stealing, or even breaking the law, cases that should be heard by a judge or jury are instead funneled into a secret system controlled by the wrongdoers in which there is no right to go to court, no right to a jury, no right to a written record, no right to discovery, no transparency, no legal precedents to follow, no opportunity for group actions when it would be too difficult or costly to file a claim alone, no guarantee of an adjudicator with legal expertise, no transparency, and no meaningful judicial review. Without such checks and balances, the deck is stacked heavily against workers, patients, and consumers, and systemic misconduct is allowed to continue in secret.


Forced arbitration’s proponents counter that the process is faster, fairer, and better for workers and consumers than going to court. However, this comprehensive analysis of the self-reported data provided by the arbitration organizations makes clear that forced arbitration is not an alternative judicial process, but instead eliminates claims, immunizes corporations, and allows abuse, discrimination, fraud, and essentially all other corporate wrongdoing to go unchecked.

Americans are more likely to be struck by lightning than they are to win a monetary award in forced arbitration.

Click on the image to get a copy of the full report or download it here.



forced-arbitration-2019-final.pdf
File Size: 1743 kb
File Type: pdf
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Wells Fargo tries to send Innocent Pastor to Jail, Then Insists Pastor Should be Forced to Arbitrate Claims Against Wells Fargo

9/2/2019

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  If there was ever a case that showed exactly how forced arbitration encourages and promotes corporate misconduct and arrogance, this is it.  A pastor wrongly accused of theft because of Wells Fargo's screwup simply asks for an explanation and for Wells to pay his legal fees, fees he was forced to incur solely because of Wells and its screwup.

Wells tells him to go fly a kite, "apologizing" but refusing to cover his legal bills.  And now Wells is trying to hide the case behind the stone wall of forced arbitration, where the judge of the case (the private arbitrator) is literally on Wells Fargo's payroll.

Starting in the 1970s, a series of radical decisions by the US Supreme Court tossed out the 70 years of precedent barring forced arbitration in employment and consumer cases. Since then, we've seen the entire civil justice system in America has essentially been gutted by these forced arbitration clauses in consumer and employment cases. Corporations use these clauses to cover up when they lie, cheat and steal, and arbitration protects outrageous criminal conduct by corporations by keeping others harmed in the same ways of having any ability to even know that others are fighting the same fight.

Forced arbitration is the end of any concept of Equal Justice Under Law in America, and its use is a huge part of the reason that while most Americans are struggling to keep up, the richest of the rich are becoming even richer without bounds.




Wells Fargo pushes wrongly accused N.J. pastor toward arbitration

         A New Jersey pastor who was falsely arrested because of errors made by Wells Fargo employees may be forced to resolve legal claims against the bank in arbitration, renewing questions about banks' use of the process.
 . . .

Edwards deposited four checks in an ATM one afternoon in April 2018. Later, a photo of Edwards depositing his checks was falsely linked to a series of fraudulent checks deposited in the same machine on the same day. The photo of Edwards was posted on a New Jersey State Police Facebook page, prompting one of his parishioners to point him to the page, telling him he had a twin. The actual owner of the account into which the fraudulent checks were deposited was a 20-year-old woman.

The bank later admitted it was at fault and offered an apology. Edwards asked the bank to explain what happened and pay his legal fees; the bank refused.

...
For his part, Edwards is angry the bank is now trying to take the case to arbitration.
“It's a frustrating sense of not being able to get justice and having it all postponed,” Edwards said in an interview. “They threatened my reputation and put me through a great deal of angst and anxiety about the threat and the uncertainty of where this all was headed. So I would like some compensation for that. I would like an explanation for how they could have allowed this to happen. And then there’s the fact that they made a mistake initially and they seemed to just double down when they were asked about the mistake. There should have been ample reason to call into question their initial discernment that I was the person who cashed the fraudulent checks.”

Edwards also said he worries that this could happen to someone who doesn't have the means to hire a lawyer or who has a criminal record.

“In my experience dealing with the state police, I was pressured to confess to something I did not do,” Edwards said. “I can easily imagine how someone would cave in to that, if they did not have my advantages.”
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Don't Let Chase force you into arbitration if you have a dispute with them!

7/12/2019

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A reporter for Kiplinger wrote a good article on arbitration and avoiding it in July 2019 -- available online:

https://www.kiplinger.com/article/credit/T016-C000-S002-how-to-opt-out-of-forced-arbitration.html


Remember, you have to act fast (by early August) and send Chase a regular, signed, snail-mail letter to keep them from forcing you out of court and into forced arbitration on many of their credit cards:

From the Kiplinger story:

Write a clear statement rejecting the arbitration agreement, and request a letter of acknowledgment from Chase. Include your name, account number, address and signature, too.

Send the letter by certified mail (so that you can prove Chase received it) to P.O. Box 15298, Wilmington, DE 19850-5298.

Customers who open a Chase card after the deadline can decline the arbitration clause, too.


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Forced Arbitration: A Race To The Bottom

8/20/2018

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nela-institute-report_forced-arbitration_a-race-to-the-bottom.pdf
File Size: 899 kb
File Type: pdf
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Building on our earlier Institute report by Prof. Imre Szalai of the Loyola College of Law, Forced Arbitration: A Race To The Bottom breaks down the “what, how, & why” of forced arbitration and reveals that at least 52 Fortune 100 companies use forced arbitration in their employment contracts. Of those, 30 also ban employees from joining any class, collective, or joint legal actions when wronged in the workplace—a number that is likely to increase in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Epic Systems v. Lewis. The report also explores some of the state and federal legislative solutions that potentially are available to protect workers from this harmful practice.

By identifying which of America’s most powerful companies have imposed arbitration on employees, this report makes a unique and essential contribution to the public’s understanding of the magnitude of the threat forced arbitration poses to America’s workers.

(Download full report by clicking link to the left)

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Three inspiring reminders in three minutes: Sometimes justice prevails, forced arbitration is a system for letting fraudsters hide their crimes, and class actions offer real benefits to people like you and your neighbors

7/30/2018

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From Paul Bland of Public Justice:

There are a couple of things about this case, as explained in the video, that are striking. 

First, the corporate behavior – a payday lender misleading customers, getting them into a cycle of debt, lying about its nature, abusing the law – is truly ugly. Nearly every American should hate this kind of behavior, and see why it’s important for the legal system to address it.

Second, the video explains how the civil justice system, and class actions, got real justice for the consumers: tens of millions of dollars in refunds to consumers, illegal debts wiped away, and peoples’ credit records fixed. 

Third, the video focuses a great deal on Mr. Inetianbor, showing that the class action wasn’t just a lawyer-driven thing, but that the consumer played a huge role in protecting other consumers and working to fight this problem.

Finally, the video helps explain how vile a system forced arbitration is, and why the defendants’ efforts to use forced arbitration were a real scam.
 

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Local Media REALITY CHECK -- great piece about forced arbitration

9/1/2014

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WOW.  This FOX affiliate's "Reality Check" is an amazingly good piece of local TV journalism. WELL WORTH A WATCH.

Please share the video at the link with as many people as you can. Until everyday people realize just how badly the justice system has been privatized, corrupted, and turned against us, the real people, businesses will keep getting away with using arbitration to cover up their crimes and they will continue pouring money into campaigns to lock in their unfair dispute resolution scheme, where they get to use the power of the courts against you, but not the other way around.

Popular outrage is the only antidote. We have to start defeating any candidate for federal office who won't make fixing this mess a top priority.
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Federal judge appointed by GW Bush notes Emperor Arbitration's Nakedness

8/14/2014

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"In a decision just two days ago, a federal judge appointed by George W. Bush felt compelled by U.S. Supreme Court decisions to enforce an arbitration clause even though the judge noted that

   (a) the court did not believe that the plaintiffs ever believed they were signing away their right to bring a lawsuit;

   (b) enforcing the clause would “undermine effective enforcement of federal antitrust laws”; and

   (c) enforcing the clause after the defendant first had decided to litigate in court was “inefficient and wasteful.” 

The court concluded that in this area of law, “common sense plays no role.”
 
Here’s a blog post about the case, with link to the decision:
 
http://bit.ly/1pPBFJP
 
This is a true poster child of arbitration abuse, really highlighting just how unfair the law has gotten under the current U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions.  If people will read this decision, they may well get a sense of just how out of whack the law has gotten in this area."
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Something right happened in DC for a change

8/11/2014

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Emily Bazelon's explanation of a recent Obama executive order is posted on Slate.
One expert put it this way:

    "This is as clear and well-written an explanation as we're going to see of President Obama's Executive Order saying that corporations can't get federal contracts if they force their workers to submit to forced arbitration of civil rights claims. Emily Bazelon, a very widely read blogger, has done a terrific job of putting the executive order into context and explaining why it is so important.

    "If there is one piece that everyone should read to understand this issue, this is it. If you have friends who don't understand why forced arbitration is a problem or don't realize that President Obama has actually done something really important, this is the best story I've seen to set it all out."
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Arbitration clauses hurt you when you're investing too

7/15/2014

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Private binding arbitration clauses don't just screw consumers and employees. They also hurt investors -- including the people who just have their pension and retirement savings in 401(k) plans or other retirement savings plans -- because private binding arbitration is how corporate managers prevent anyone from knowing how badly they are screwing up and mistreating people (customers, employees), which creates huge liabilities.  If you're an investor, you should tell your companies to stop giving management cover for wasting investors' money -- tell them to stop using private binding arbitration clauses, so that you have a way to keep an eye on your money.

"Think about it. If American Apparel and Mr. Charney had been subject to public lawsuits, how long could have Mr. Charney lasted?"
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Good local TV news expose on how arbitration clauses hurt real people

5/9/2014

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A refreshing change of pace, a local news story that delves into the dirty background of how corporations use arbitration clauses to screw regular people.

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