Consumer Law

Thumbs up, Kia!

By Andy Hoffman

Wanted to give a quick shout out to our friend Kia Franklin over at TortDeform  for her excellent op-ed in The Nation about the Arbitration Fairness Act.  While we encourage you to check it out, here?s a sample?

Congress and President Obama should provide a much stronger check against corporate power. They can do that by passing The Arbitration Fairness Act (AFA), first introduced in 2007 by Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Representative Hank Johnson (D-GA).

Arbitration does not grant the three main safeguards guaranteed by our public courts: fairness, accountability and neutrality. The corporation chooses a private individual--who is not necessarily a judge or lawyer--to hear and decide the case. Corporations are repeat customers whose appeasement generates steady business. Studies show that arbitrators have financial reason to rule in their favor. Corporate clients get preferential treatment; regular people do not get anything resembling neutral decision-making.

Full post as published by ThePopTort on February 12, 2009 (boomark / email).