A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume • Hacker News Board

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#81

Post by caseysoftware » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:06 AM UTC

function_seven wrote: post #4

The article mentions 6,000 arbitration cases against DoorDash amounted to $9 million in fees from the American Arbitration Association. That's $1,500 a pop! If you have a dispute with a company, and are bound by an arbitration clause, it seems like you have a $1,500 hammer to hit them with? (Assuming your agreement states that the company will front the fees). What happens if the arbitrator decides the case against y…

This is one of the tradeoffs of forcing arbitration. If you take away my ability to file suit, you pick up more of the fees. When I did it last year, filing as a plaintiff was a flat $250. Getting pissed off people to come up with $250 may be a challenge but not impossible.

* I'm not sure if you could pull a Thiel/Hulk Hogan thing to bankroll an arbitration swarm but if so, this could definitely get ugly for companies that misbehave.

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#82

Post by capital_guy » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:14 AM UTC

paulgb wrote: post #72

DannyB2 wrote: post #2

> But a federal judge in San Francisco wasn’t willing to go along with it. The judge, William Alsup, ordered DoorDash in February to proceed with the American Arbitration Association cases and pay the fees. Ah! Gotta love judge Alsup. Back in SCO vs Novell, and in Oracle vs Google. > ... in a hearing, Judge Alsup questioned whether the company and its lawyers really believed that. > "Your law firm and all the defense…

He also taught himself Java to better understand the arguments in Oracle vs. Google. https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-googl...

Ehhh the article you linked explicitly says "Judge Alsup would like everyone to know that he doesn’t know Java."

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#83

Post by barry-cotter » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:24 AM UTC

cosmodisk wrote: post #25

vsskanth wrote: post #17

I wonder why the issue of being able to waive away your rights - forced arbitration, non-competes, severance packages etc. never come up at the presidential campaign stage. Seems like this is pervasive enough to affect pretty much everyone. Or am I misunderstanding something here ?

They won't be the people funding your presential campaign though... Obama's campaign did cost about one cool billion dollars. Even if you get a million of these guys,each would have to contribute $1000..I suspect Trumps campaign was even more expensive.

A billion dollars? About $3 per US citizen for the single most powerful position in the world, with saturation media coverage of the campaign for one to two years. Doesn’t seem like a lot. Trump spent under $400m, Hillary under $600m[1]. Bloomberg spent more on his primary campaign than Trump did from start to finish[2]. Steyer spent ~$200m and didn’t break 4% in Iowa[3]. Sure looks like money likes a winner rather than buying elections.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/09/trump-and-cl...

[2] https://www.thedailybeast.com/wheres-mike-bloomberg-billiona...

[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2020/02/01/billi...

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#84

Post by gamblor956 » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:30 AM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #55

harimau777 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two differences that I see: A union is designed to protect your rights, forced arbitration is designed to limit your rights. Arbitration clauses are so ubiquitous that it would be almost impossible to operate in modern society while refusing to sign them.

A union may protect your rights, but they do ask for some in return - often the ability to work at non-union jobs. The point is, you're still "signing away your rights". You're agreeing that you won't do certain things that are within your right to do, as a condition to employment. Arbitration is ubiquitous because even at the cost of hundreds of dollars per hour arbitration is a lot cheaper and faster than going to…

Union membership is usually job-specific. If you leave the job, you generally also leave the union unless your new job is also a union job. And even if the new job is a union job, if it's a different union then your position in the old union doesn't transfer over.

Talent guilds are generally the only unions that restrict their members from doing non-union work, and even the talent guilds have exceptions for lower-earning members.

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#85

Post by mindslight » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:31 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #28

Oh, it's even worse than that for companies. The 9th and 10th circuits have both agreed that if the defense refuses to pay for arbitration, plaintiff can go to court. They're no longer barred from suing at that point. Incidentally, the AAA rules have some useful provisions in consumer disputes. Either party can request to transfer the case to small claims court. At least in California, that's not only cheaper, small…

How is that any worse of a position for the companies than if they had never attempted these nonsensical arbitration clauses in the first place? A reasonable outcome would be summary judgements for the plaintiffs due to the defendants not appearing per their own process.

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#86

Post by gamblor956 » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:33 AM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #40

This strategy does result in increased upfront costs for companies. But this sort pile-on strategy seems like it could be countered with arbitration agreements that aren't subject to any sort of timeline, or arbitration agreements that preclude use of automated complaint filing systems. Fundamentally, this strategy of inundating the company with claims only works because it's more expensive for the company to respond…

It doesn't matter if 90% of plaintiffs choose not to go to trial. The 10% that do are more than enough to overwhelm the company's ability to individually manage each case.

Also, in the US legal system, it costs very little to file a lawsuit. And for plaintiffs, it generally costs nothing at the early stages because most plaintiff lawyers work on contingency.

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#87

Post by secabeen » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:38 AM UTC

wegs wrote: post #27

gumby wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions have suffered from a bad reputation in the United States over the past few decades. Some of it is deserved BTW; some big unions were/are corrupted and some were connected with organized crime. Even more innocently, unions have been quite conservative; as jobs and technology changed some were very resistant and fought modernization (requiring people who were not needed to be around). But a lot of it also stems…

Most of the bad reputation is deserved. Most US unions are horrible organizations. There are still some good unions, just not many. That doesn't make the concept of a union bad. They worked much better 50 years ago, even. It's a great concept, but the implementation got corrupted over the years. I don't think we'll fix unions' reputations without first fixing unions. And we really need more unions and more credible u…

A lot of the challenges come out of the specifics of the laws surrounding unions. They were written in a much rougher era, where corporations and unions were very much in direct opposition. If we could re-write those laws, we could open the door to much more cooperative relationships between unions that the current laws do not allow. Unfortunately, there's no sign of the republican and democratic parties getting together to make a grand bargain on the laws, so we're stuck with them as they are today.

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#88

Post by techsupporter » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:38 AM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #55

harimau777 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two differences that I see: A union is designed to protect your rights, forced arbitration is designed to limit your rights. Arbitration clauses are so ubiquitous that it would be almost impossible to operate in modern society while refusing to sign them.

A union may protect your rights, but they do ask for some in return - often the ability to work at non-union jobs. The point is, you're still "signing away your rights". You're agreeing that you won't do certain things that are within your right to do, as a condition to employment. Arbitration is ubiquitous because even at the cost of hundreds of dollars per hour arbitration is a lot cheaper and faster than going to…

> And if people don't like the results of arbitration, there's still the option of claiming impartial arbitration and filing a lawsuit anyway.

This is not accurate. Almost every mandatory binding arbitration clause of substance includes wording that the arbitrator's decision is final and cannot be appealed. Also, the question of whether the arbitrator's ruling was fair and impartial--did you mean claiming "partial," or biased, arbitration?--is, much like the question of jurisdiction or ability to arbitrate, left to the arbitrator to decide under those same terms.

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#89

Post by Digory » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:42 AM UTC

vsskanth wrote: post #17

I wonder why the issue of being able to waive away your rights - forced arbitration, non-competes, severance packages etc. never come up at the presidential campaign stage. Seems like this is pervasive enough to affect pretty much everyone. Or am I misunderstanding something here ?

1. The Democrat powers-that-be like arbitration as much as Republican p-t-b, so it is not a net gain to feature it prominently.

2. For the most part, the direct gains to consumers are small. Even if you get Door Dash to pay out two-thirds of its $9 mil., it's less than a thousand bucks per person. Pay a $250 filing fee, figure 1/3 fee for the lawyers, and you get $500 in an ideal case. That's nice for clients, but not life-changing. Indirectly, of course, there are large benefits.

3. Compared to one client's recovery, it looks like a windfall to lawyers. And most Americans would rather shoot themselves in the foot (metaphorically, at least) than help lawyers get rich.

(In fact, it's probably not all that profitable for the lawyers. It looks like low-margin work that only pays off for the firm if each lawyer tries to manage an ungodly number of cases.)

Re: A new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume

#90

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:42 AM UTC

DannyB2 wrote: post #2

> But a federal judge in San Francisco wasn’t willing to go along with it. The judge, William Alsup, ordered DoorDash in February to proceed with the American Arbitration Association cases and pay the fees. Ah! Gotta love judge Alsup. Back in SCO vs Novell, and in Oracle vs Google. > ... in a hearing, Judge Alsup questioned whether the company and its lawyers really believed that. > "Your law firm and all the defense…

So glad he ruled against them. Door Dash forced its dashers to use a specific arbitration organization, and then when they actually did, refused to pay their fees and tried to take their case to a different arbitration organization that was more favorable to them. What a load of total bullshit.

Goes to show the only "efficiencies" brought about by arbitration are discouraging people from bringing claims in the first place.