.

Sorry, that was really heartless. Here's my thoughts and prayers!

.

She chose to work for a scum bag’s campaign, how did she think she’d be treated? Hope both sides spend a lot of money fighting each other and neither side gets a penny.

which, it seems to me, generally favor the wrong side, i. e., the side with lots of lawyers, time and money.

And that can't stand.

These NDAs are bullshit.

One of the worst provisions is that any conflicts would be arbitrated, rather than allowed to go to Court. Arbitrations, I read, are almost always found in the company's favor.

Just another day in Trumperville. Another stoooopid Trumper.

People sign these things because they want to be attached to the campaign, I guess. No matter what.

Arbitration agreements are very common and much cheaper than going to court. That is why trial lawyers oppose them. They are lose business. Almost all labor unions have arbitration agreements as part of their contracts. Why would they do that if arbitration was "always in the company's favor"?

I don't try cases but I work with lawyers who do. If there's an arbitration (or, for that matter, a mediation), the client doesn't toss the lawyer aside and go it alone. The client is represented by his or her lawyer, just as if it were a trial.

The most common type of case is the suit for personal injury in which the plaintiff's lawyer is on a contingency fee. IOW, the defendant's lawyer is paid by the hour but the plaintiff's lawyer is not. The plaintiff's lawyer receives a percentage of the amount collected, whether it's pursuant to arbitration, settlement, or trial.

The big problem with many contractual arbitration clauses is in the selection of the arbitrator(s). A union negotiating a collective bargaining agreement has the ability to ensure a fair process. When one individual must sign an arbitration agreement in order to get a job, however, the power relationship is quite imbalanced. The employer can and does arrange for arbitration in a friendly forum. For example, the arbitrator knows that he or she will never see this employee again, but the employer will be in a position to direct future cases (and fees) to arbitrators it likes.

selected from a pool then to offset such issues?

Much shorter time and a streamlined process. Basically your position is that arbitrators are bought and paid for frauds. How they survive ethics complaints if that is the case is beyond me.

In the typical personal-injury case, the plaintiff's attorney receives one-third of the net recovery (after expenses). If the defendant wins -- because a judge dismisses a case, because a jury finds against the plaintiff, or because an arbitrator rules against the plaintiff -- the lawyer gets nothing. If there is an ultimate award from any of those sources or from a settlement, then the lawyer gets one-third, regardless.

Sometimes a defendant recognizes the strength of the case and settles early on, in which case the lawyer doesn't have to do a trial or an arbitration. Other times, there might be many hours spent in trial preparation, then a lengthy trial, then after an appeal there has to be a retrial, and the lawyer spends an enormous amount of time. An arbitration would be somewhere in between those extremes. In all three scenarios, though, the lawyer for the injured victim gets one-third, a fee that does not depend on the time expended.

You don't need to believe that arbitrators are bought and paid for frauds. Believe only that they're human. As humans they have tendencies, known proclivities, etc. To take a well-known example, the Justices of the Supreme Court are commonly divided into blocs based on their beliefs. None of them are frauds, but you can usually make an accurate prediction about how Clarence Thomas or Ruth Bader Ginsburg will vote on a particular case. The difference with SCOTUS is that all nine Justices hear each appeal, regardless of what the parties want. Imagine if the appeal were decided by only one Justice and one of the parties could pick which one that would be. Don't you think that the party doing the picking would have a wee bit of an unfair advantage?

Last edited Tue Dec 11, 2018, 01:40 PM - Edit history (1)

... bias of the arbitrators. Arbitrators want business just like everyone else. If they arbitrate a case between XYZ, Inc. and Joe Smith, they know that Mr. Smith will probably never have another arbitration. On the other hand XYZ, Inc. may have 10 or 15 a year. Some ins companies have hundreds each year. If the arbitrator rules in favor of Mr Smith, they are less likely to get future business. That’s why it’s is often true that arbitrations tend to go for the defendant, and even when they don’t, the amounts awarded are generally much less.

This is not just a trial lawyer issue. It’s true that trial lawyers lose revenue because of arbitration, but that’s because they work for a percentage and are less able to win money for their clients.

The best example of this is the auto sales industry. Before the 1990s, one of the most sued industries in the US was car dealerships. The array of scams they used to sell you a car and finance it for you was impressive. Then they started using arbitration agreements. Now they are almost never sued. Do you think they had a change of heart and stopped employing all the scams? Unlikely. If anything, it’s worse. But they save billions on litigation costs because “greedy trial lawyers”.

Edited for a typo - used to sued.

There is a reason the insurance industry spent a lot of $ demonizing trial lawyers and promoting arbitration in the 80s and 90s.

It is inherent in what they do. The system has reacted to that as it does to anything and created other forms of dispute resolution. If you have a small claim good luck finding a trial lawyer who will take your case.

... there are trial lawyers who are greedy. Just as there are doctors, real estate developers, CEOs etc... who are greedy.

But virtually every safety device on your car, every safety rule/protection at your job, every guard on your lawn mower, every worker’s benefit required by labor laws, every anti-fraud policy associated with your mortgage purchase (and on and on) is the result of some trial lawyer filing a lawsuit because someone got hurt or screwed. That is just a fact. You don’t really think Ford developed seatbelts and anti rollover technology, or that Firestone has stricter quality control because they wanted to save lives, do you? And don’t tell me the consumer market drove such innovations. That is a fairy tale.

Some trial lawyers become wealthy. Some are first class assholes. But they are influential and vocal allies of the progressive movement and consumer/workers rights policies. Why else would the business and insurance lobbies spend so much time demonizing them with false stories of the Stella Leibeck case?

GM knew about the problem for years. It corrected the defect in its newer models but didn't recall all the deathtrap vehicles it had already manufactured -- didn't, that is, until a plaintiff's lawyer got involved. As summarized in the Wikipedia article on the subject:

In most cases, the plaintiff isn't entitled to pre-judgment interest, so a defense lawyer who manages to protract the litigation can bill more hours and gets his or her client an interest-free loan of the ultimate payout. Defendants can also exploit the frequent situation that an injured victim can't work and is in desperate financial straits, and is thus forced to accept a lowball settlement instead of fighting for additional years.

You write, "If you have a small claim good luck finding a trial lawyer who will take your case." Yes, it's really horrible that trial lawyers refuse to work for free or nearly so. Look at the example cited by Honeycombe8 in #29. The woman got screwed out of $600 by AT&T. She ended up having to pay the unjust fee of $600. There was an arbitration clause but, whether it had been arbitration or litigation, you're right that she wouldn't be able to find a lawyer to take the case. Fie on those greedy trial lawyers (and their greedy landlords who demand payment of office rent and their greedy secretaries who demand payment of wages).

There's a difference in the sophistication and knowledge of the average person vs. a large company or a lawyer working for a wealthy person. There's no match at all.

As for trial lawyers wanting a trial, you should know that the companies have lawyers, as well, who stand to gain MORE MONEY than any trial lawyer, since they get paid by the hour, win or lose.

Why would you think companies would choose arbitration, if they don't have a better chance of prevailing?

Here's an article for your perusal:

... that if you screw someone out of $10,000,000, you’ll get your ass sued. But if you screw a million people out of $10 each, you’re golden.

“Lay down with dogs, wake up with fleas”

Thing

👍🏼

This whole arbitration mess has got to be cleaned up. The major party in an arbitration usually owns the proceedings. Just try winning something against your credit card company when you have signed an arbitration agreement.

Good luck, Jessica.

Welcome to Trump world Jessica.

1. Became a Repug.
2. Signed a Trump NA.
3. Worked the Trump campaign and saw some of his confidential stuff.
4. Talked about his confidential stuff.

Now, you have to pay the man his money. See how he works?

According to the OP, she declined to participate in the arbitration. In my experience, this kind of boycott makes the party feel good in the short run but redounds to that party's disadvantage in the long run.

For example, perhaps the fourth mistake you list wasn't a mistake. I don't know the law in this area, but maybe there's a valid argument to be made that the NDA is overridden by the public policy in favor of enforcing the antidiscrimination laws. On that theory, the NDA is subject to an implied-in-law exception for disclosures made in a lawsuit alleging discrimination. She gave up any opportunity to make that argument to the arbitrators.

that the NDA is not valid, then you don't participate in the arbitration.

The correct conclusion might well be that the arbitration provision of the employment agreement is valid, while the NDA provision of the employment agreement is generally valid but is subject to an exception. On that view, the arbitrators would make the decision and would decide to reject Trump's claim.

Now that there's an arbitration award against her, she'll have a tough row to hoe in challenging that award in court. Public policy is to favor voluntary dispute resolution, and this one is voluntary because it's pursuant to a contract signed by both parties. There are only limited grounds on which courts will overturn an arbitration award. "The arbitrators made a mistake" is not one of them.

ETA: Now, having read the full article, I see that federal court agreed with me:

I just dislike those folks in the tRump campaign. I also hate Illinois Nazis.

She was one of them.

This is one of those situations where instead of rooting for either team, you root for a long scoreless game with lots of injuries.

She chose, of her own free will, to sell Chump to Hispanics. What happens to her does not move the needle on my givashitometer.

Some way that both sides can lose! Like i do when the Packers play the Vikings!

Cause he's so smart and rich.

The Trump campaign has an NDA against "violating it's intellectual property".

Never should the words 'Trump' and 'intellectual' be used together in the same sentence!

"I can't believe the trump campaign would have 'intellectual property.'"

"intellectual property" could be an box of Post Alpha-bits cereal.