Jim and Carrie Carroll at Carroll and Carroll, P.C. represent the injured people of Pennsylvania and New York in Bradford, Sullivan, Tioga, Susquehanna, and Chemung counties in personal injury, premises liability, slip and fall, automobile accident and workers’ compensation cases Jim and Carrie Carroll at Carroll and Carroll, P.C. represent the injured people of Pennsylvania and New York in Bradford, Sullivan, Tioga, Susquehanna, and Chemung counties in personal injury, premises liability, slip and fall, automobile accident and workers’ compensation cases
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    2/10/2009
    James R. Carroll, Jr., Esquire
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    CALL YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS AND URGE SUPPORT FOR THE ARBITRATION FAIRNESS ACT OF 2009

    Congressman Henry “Hank” Johnson is set to introduce the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2009 this week.  Please call your Member of Congress TODAY and ask them to be an original cosponsor of the bill.  The Arbitration Fairness Act would prohibit the enforcement of binding mandatory arbitration clauses in consumer, employment, and franchisee contracts. 

    Below is a Dear Colleague letter from Congressman Johnson for your reference and following that is information on mandatory arbitration.

    Dear Colleague,

    One of our indelible rights is the right of a jury trial.  Guaranteed by the Constitution, this right has been gradually ceded by citizens everyday as they purchase a new cell phone, buy a home, place a loved one in a nursing home, or accept a new job.  Once used as a tool for businesses to solve their disputes, arbitration agreements have found their way into employment, consumer, franchise, and medical contracts.

    The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) was enacted as an alternative to resolve disputes between businesses on equal footing.  Today, these agreements have entered the consumer level.  In order to receive service, businesses have imposed mandatory pre-dispute arbitration agreements on consumers.  Citing it as a cheaper, informal, expedited process, these contracts of adhesion leave consumers, employees, and small businesses at a disadvantage.

    Ordinary Americans overwhelmingly do not support mandatory arbitration clauses when they are explained to them.  However, millions of Americans have unknowingly received mandatory arbitration clauses in contracts for a wide range of consumer goods and services.  Oftentimes, they are enforced without a signature, and are announced in hundreds of lines deep in fine print, written in dense legalese, often on the backside of a document or buried in a mailer along with other pieces of advertisements or solicitations.  If and when a dispute does arise, high administrative fees, a lack of a discovery proceeding, and no meaningful judicial review of an arbitrator’s decision amount to a stacked deck against the consumer, making it harder for individuals to prevail. 

    Although states have tried to address this problem through their consumer protection laws, the courts have interpreted the Act to trump state laws leaving consumers very little recourse.  This legislation would return the FAA to its original intention and omit consumer, medical, franchise, and employment agreements from these pre-dispute agreements.  Americans are entitled to a trial by jury; pre-dispute mandatory arbitration agreements give only one side the upper hand.

    Please become an original cosponsor of this important legislation. 

    Sincerely,

    Henry “Hank” Johnson
    Member of Congress


    Labels: arbitration arbitration fairness act


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