ILR Fights Plaintiffs’ Bar Efforts to Remove Arbitration Option

The Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform (ILR) released two reports this week illustrating the widespread public support for the use of arbitration over litigation in consumer and employee disputes.

ILR unveiled a new bipartisan survey that found that 82% of likely voters prefer arbitration as a means to settle a serious dispute with a company rather than filing a lawsuit. To drive home the point, Lisa Rickard, president of ILR, played a short video featuring consumer Sharon Kruse who used the arbitration process to settle a disagreement with Sears over $280 in boiler repairs. “It’s a convenient and fair way to go about your problems,” Kruse said in the video, which is available on ILR’s Web site.

ILR also released an analysis by arbitration expert and Catholic University Columbus School of Law Professor Peter Rutledge of a Public Citizen report used by opponents of arbitration. Rutledge found that the report, which claims that consumers fared poorly in cases settled by arbitration, is “wrong, both on the facts and in its ultimate conclusions.”

The Chamber and ILR are fighting proposed legislation supported by the plaintiffs’ bar that would eliminate the use of mandatory predispute arbitration clauses in future consumer, employment, brokerage, and franchise contracts and would nullify potentially millions of predispute arbitration clauses in existing contracts if a dispute arises under that contract after enactment of the legislation.

Read the Rutledge report and view the survey results and Kruse video at www.instituteforlegalreform.com/.

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