Comment by Justsignedup
7 years ago
forced arbitration has been the bane of combatting anything legally. it basically is now used to completely remove any employee or consumer ability to sue. This is used for literally everything. Every employer does this now, every software product, every hardware.
I don't understand how this is even acceptable.
Because it doesn't actually do that. Only in the u.s. do people believe that suing over anything and everything is an efficient or effective mechanism of justice
"Sue it out" is probably the least effective possible conflict resolution mechanism along almost any axis.
The underlying goal of arbitration is to ensure effective resolution of non-complex situations and reserve the courts for actually complex cases, instead of now, where they are used because people hope they can make a bunch of money.
The only thing I'm aware of is people complain of bias of arbitrators using the proxy of how often business wins relative to people in courts (with no evaluation of whether people should be winning as much as they do in court).
Otherwise I have seen nothing that suggests that arbitration is not in fact very effective and efficient at reducing the cost and time involved.
the primary thing about arbitration
- it prevents class-action lawsuits
- it is funded typically by the company, and is very likely to agree with the company
Maybe suing constantly is an american thing, but if that is to be addressed it should be by congress not by individual companies wanting to circumvent civil law.