In the News

From the Washington Post: 5/3/2019.

"Over the last three decades, more and more corporations have forced their employees or customers to sign these contracts, agreeing to take their disputes to private arbitration instead of to court. A recent study estimates that currently more than 60 million U.S. workers signed these mandatory arbitration agreements when they were hired. Another found that, last year, consumers signed almost three times as many consumer arbitration agreements as there are people living in the U.S."

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch: 5/1/2019.

"Military personnel should have at the very least the same rights as everyone else to compensation for gross medical negligence. The House bill would provide welcome relief to those who have been permanently harmed by bad medical practices. We hope it is passed quickly."

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From Stars and Stripes: 4/30/2019.

"But it doesn’t stop there: Patients and their families aren’t allowed to sue for medical malpractice. A special legal shield, known as the Feres Doctrine, blocks military servicemembers and their relatives from seeking recourse in court."

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From the Washington Post: 4/30/2019.

"These activists are hoping they can get enough workers on board -- in the tech sector and beyond -- to bring the debate over forced arbitration that's been brewing for years in Silicon Valley to Washington. The phone bank event is an early sign that tech workers, not usually considered organized labor, are banding together to become a more traditional political force -- and even adopting old-school ways of getting their message across."

From CBS News: 4/17/2019.

"Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are pushing to regulate trampoline parks amid mounting concern over their risks. A California police officer filed a lawsuit last week after he was temporarily paralyzed at a trampoline park outside San Francisco in 2013."

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From USA TODAY: 4/4/2019.

"A two-year investigation by USA TODAY, The Arizona Republic  and the Center for Public Integrity reveals for the first time the extent to which special interests have infiltrated state legislatures using model legislation."

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From the Washington Post: 3/4/2019.

"If the bill passes, it would be a step in the right direction. In the best of all possible worlds, the government would also help protect customers from misbehaving companies. At the very least, though, it shouldn’t be protecting misbehaving companies from their customers."

From Slate: 3/1/2019.

"In a truly harrowing story, the 87-year-old nun was raped in the nursing home where she resided, but her family was barred from suing the nursing home for negligence. Wells Fargo opened over 3 million fake accounts in customers’ names, but these customers were also blocked from court and forced into arbitration instead; they had no hope for redress until the Consumer Fraud Protection Bureau stepped in. And nearly 3,000 Chipotle workers were kicked out of a wage-theft lawsuit last year for the same reason."

From the Los Angeles Times: 2/28/2019.

"A new poll of 1,200 voters by Hart Research Associates found that 84% supported legislation to end arbitration requirements. Close to 90% of Republicans and 83% of Democrats supported the bill, and most preferred to have their own disputes heard in court, the survey found."

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From Yahoo Finance: 2/28/2019.

"The Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act of 2019, or “FAIR Act,” is the latest in a long history of proposed bills that have attempted but failed to defang the current statutory and Supreme Court framework maintaining enforceability of mandatory arbitration clauses."

Read the full article here.