Wednesday, November 04, 2015

Cramdown arbitration stinks: third article in NY Times series

Here's the third article in a Pulitzer-worthy series on cramdown arbitration, forced on consumers, employees and even probationers.  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/business/dealbook/in-religious-arbitration-scripture-is-the-rule-of-law.html?_r=0 
The third article documents something that Judge James L. Guill and I did NOT anticipate in our 1989 American Bar Association Judges' Journal article ("A Rush to Unfairness: the Downside to Alternative Dispute Resolution").  People are being forced into arbitration based on religious, not legal principles.  Courts have upheld it.
Thus, Sharia law could become the rule of decision (just as the Bible is being used) in mandatory cram down arbitrations).
Sick.
Wrong.
Unconstitutional.
It reminds me of former Tennessee Supreme Court Justice William H.D. Fones, who would sit in his chambers, reading legal briefs, sometimes muttering, "The bastards!" Enough mandatory cramdown arbitration, a legal experiment that has failed.

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