
Chipotle’s Mandatory Arbitration Agreements Are Backfiring - moonka
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chipotle-mandatory-arbitration-agreements_us_5c1bda0de4b0407e90787abd?mr5
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setr
Is there any reason the same operation couldn’t be enacted in the future, as a
legitimate strategy for psuedo-collective lawsuits? It seems like treating
everything the same as a collective lawsuit, then executing it individually,
makes for much stronger leverage against the company. In both scenarios where
arbitration agreements exist, and don’t.

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scott00
It's not cost effective. In this case, it's looking like each arbitration
proceeding will cost the employee that files it $400 in arbitration fees, and
they will win at most ~$1000. Assuming $200/hour for lawyers (ha! if only), if
they spend more than 3 hours dealing with it, they lose. The only reason
they're going this route is because it will cost Chipotle even more: $1100 in
filing fees, plus the hourly rate of the arbitrator (likely ~$1000/hour), plus
their own legal fees. So it's a useful harassing tactic on the part of the
class action lawyers.

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setr
I'm assuming the total revenue for the lawyer should be similar to what they'd
get in a class-action, assuming they actually gather a critical mass (for
either case); and then if they treat it as a class-action, where most evidence
is somewhat shared... then you could re-enact the scenario

Whats not clear to me is whether a class-action _must_ be treated differently
from 300 independent lawsuits, assuming a single lawyer/group handles all the
cases, from the perspective of the lawyers. Ignoring I guess the cost of 300
independent filings, but I'm also assuming thats a rather small part of the
overall cost.

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scott00
I'm not an expert in this stuff, but my understanding is that the scope of
discovery allowed in each individual arbitration is likely to be substantially
less than that which would be allowed in a class action lawsuit. A class
action would be able to demonstrate coordinated wrongdoing by presenting
evidence from a representative subset of low-level employees, along with
testimony from high level employees and huge troves of emails and internal
documents. That type of evidence would be sufficient to generalize from what
happened to the small subset of employees to what happened to all the class
members. An individual arbitration however is likely going to be limited to
gathering testimony of the specific low-level employees involved in the
specific case under consideration. Without that evidence of centrally
coordinated wrongdoing, the proof in one case is not likely to be useful in
other individual arbitrations. And because of that, there's not nearly as much
economy of scale in doing large numbers of individual cases as there is in
class actions.

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Y7ZCQtNo39
It sounds like a single entity is helping many workers take individual cases
(under unique circumstances). This sounds just like a class-action lawsuit,
except with extra steps.

If it proves worthwhile, it could potentially give workers an option to fight
back against agreements that prevent class-action suits in the first place.

And with the economy structured as it is, we all certainly know the working
class could use a win.

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zenexer
Question: what happens if Chipotle never pays the arbitration fees?

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greenyoda
If their agreement with employees says that disputes will be settled by
arbitration, then refusing to arbitrate might be a breach of contract, for
which they could be sued in a class action.

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aerotwelve
Even if the breached contract contains a mandatory binding arbitration clause?
How ironic.

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greenyoda
I'm guessing that a contract that says "if we refuse to arbitrate, you must
resolve that by arbitration" wouldn't stand up in court. As Wikipedia says:

"A contract is a promise or set of promises that are legally enforceable and,
if violated, allow the injured party access to legal remedies. Contract law
recognizes and governs the rights and duties arising from agreements. In the
Anglo-American common law, formation of a contract generally requires an
offer, acceptance, consideration, and a mutual intent to be bound."[1]

The judge in this article is already upset with Chipotle, and probably won't
be happy if they try to delay arbitration any further:

> _Chipotle recently asked a federal judge to block the workers from seeking
> arbitration with lawyers who’d represented them in court ― despite the fact
> Chipotle had forced arbitration upon its workers via agreements they had to
> sign when they were hired.

> The judge denied that request, calling Chipotle’s actions “unseemly.”_

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract)

