Philadelphia Injury Attorney Blog

The experienced Philadelphia personal injury lawyers at the law firm of Reiff and Bily note that more and more individuals are signing away their right to sue in a court of law if something goes wrong. When entering into any contract with lenders, credit card companies, cell phone providers, and cable providers there is a good chance that contract requires you to sign away your right to sue if there is a problem. Unfortunately, many consumers are being forced into mandatory arbitration and many critics claim that arbitration favors the large corporation and not the individual. Henceforth, the likelihood of a positive outcome can be less than if you pursue litigation through the court systems.

Bills have been introduced in the House and Senate ending mandatory arbitration clauses. However, they are strongly opposed by some of the most powerful industries in the country. Unfortunately, the reality of mandatory arbitration clauses is that the company gets to pick an arbitrator who is often a retired judge or seasoned individual who have a selfish incentive to make the company hiring them happy if they want future employment and more dollars in their pocket.

Recently one of the experienced personal injury lawyers of Reiff and Bily had an experience with a client where he went into a mediation and paid a considerable amount of money to the mediator only to find that the mediator was so biased against our client that we walked out of the mediation shortly after the start and filed an action seeking redress in the courts. Many arbitrators and even the American Arbitration Association (the leading arbitration provider) states that procedures are in place “that are fair and mutual and which give all parties to the dispute an equal voice in the selection of an arbitrator”. A recent article published in the LA Times blasting forced arbitration quoted Geoff Lysaught, Director of Searle Civil Justice Institute at Northwestern University of Law, stating that researchers had found evidence that companies involved in repeated arbitrations tend to receive more favorable outcomes than infrequent participants. As noted above, this may be due to the fact that repeat players represent more revenue for arbitrators. Any “plain fool” can determine that what is supposed to be an unbiased and fair forum for a hearing may not necessarily be that way.