Source – wallstreetonparade.com
– The New York Times has just completed a three-part investigative series on the evisceration across America of the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of a right to a jury trial under the Seventh Amendment, which mandates: “In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”
Just as corporate prisons and corporate charter schools are proliferating across the American landscape with attendant horror stories, the doors to the Nation’s taxpayer funded courts have been largely closed to the average citizen. Consumers of everything from credit cards to phone service to nursing homes cannot obtain the product or service without surrendering their access to the U.S. court system through fine print buried in the corporate contract. The privatized system is referred to as pre-dispute arbitration or mandatory arbitration or forced arbitration. Many corporations impose it as a condition of employment as well.
The Times writes:
“Over the last 10 years, thousands of businesses across the country — from big corporations to storefront shops — have used arbitration to create an alternate system of justice. There, rules tend to favor businesses, and judges and juries have been replaced by arbitrators who commonly consider the companies their clients, The Times found.”
The Times, admirably, exposed a litany of abuses in rigged arbitration proceedings that left people worse off than before the arbitration. As Debbie Brenner of Peoria, Arizona tells The Times, “It was a kangaroo court. I can’t believe this is America.” Brenner’s case against a corporate run school for surgical technicians over failing to deliver on its promises was heard by a lawyer from the roster of arbitrators hearing cases for the American Arbitration Association (AAA), Dennis Negron. The proceeding was conducted in the corporate law offices of the firm representing the corporate school.
In addition to the $24,000 Brenner had paid to the school for tuition and the $12,000 her husband had withdrawn from his retirement account to pay for her legal expenses, Negron assigned the school’s legal fees of $354,210.77 to Brenner and fellow students who had also brought claims.
This Friday, it will be exactly 15 years ago that the National Organization for Women in New York City (NOW-NYC) and I protested in front of the corporate offices of the American Arbitration Association on Madison Avenue. We issued a press release to the media, including the New York Times, that revealed the following:
“AAA has an incestuous relationship with corporate America. According to its 1999 Annual Report, the following corporations are represented on its Board of Directors: Boeing, PetsMart, Prudential Property & Casualty Insurance, Sprint, AXA Financial, Monsanto, GE, McDonalds, Essex Boat Works, Walt Disney, General Mills, FedEx, Freddie Mac, Pfizer, BellSouth, Pitney Bowes, Waste Management, Goya Foods, Texaco, Kansas City Southern, Cushman & Wakefield, Cooper Industries, DaimlerChrysler, Dow Chemical, Commonwealth Edison, International Dairy Queen, Coors Brewing, Hallmark Cards, Hartford Financial.”
Our press release also put a spotlight on the following at AAA:
“…the neutrality of its arbitrators has been seriously called into question by a memo written January 14, 2000 by Paul L. Van Loon, Regional Vice President at the time of AAA. In this memo, Mr. Van Loon tells the very arbitrators who may be called upon to adjudicate claims: ‘Part of our marketing effort for 2000 will be to develop business contacts with corporations headquartered in Northern California. Meeting with corporate counsel and CEOs will allow us the opportunity to develop personal relationships and explore the use of ADR in their business. To accomplish this, I am asking for your help. If you have a contact with a corporation and you can make the introduction for us, please print your name next to the corporation listed…Allowing us to make a ‘warm’ call will make the connection more meaningful. If you would like to make the call with us, please indicate it on the sheet…”
Wall Street On Parade decided to take a look at who is currently on the Board of Directors of the American Arbitration Association. According to Bloomberg Business, the AAA Board includes lawyers from some of the most prominent go-to law firms for Wall Street and corporate America: Michael Mukasey of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP; Daniel Price of Sidley Austin; Guillermo Aguilar-Alvarez of King and Spalding; Albert Bates Jr. of Duane Morris LLP; and John Fellas of Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP, among others.
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