Wrongful Arbitration

The San Francisco City Attorney's Office, led by Dennis Herrera, filed suit against the National Arbitration Forum March 24, 2008. According to http://thehill.com/homenews/house/60793-rep-kucinich-flap-reveals-sensitivity-of-contacts-with-courts-prosecutors, all the filings and discovery are under a 'protective order' issued by an Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer.

This is the standard behavior pattern of billionaires and movie stars, and those that don't want any raking through the muck. See Case Number: CGC-08-473569.

Read the protective order here.

Since 2003, California law requires providers of consumer-related arbitration to disclose activities. The section of the California Code of Civil Procedure is 1281.96.

This list ranks the TOP 50 so-called 'neutral' arbitrators employed by the National Arbitration Forum. They are listed in order of their 'Hearing Volume'. The historical record dates from January 1, 2003.

Victor Waid continues to lead the pack in rubber-stamping alleged 'Arbitration Awards" on California consumers. Without any more fanfare- here is the WRONGFUL ARBITRATION TOP 50 list FOR ALL TIME! Source: The National Arbitration Forum 1281.96 filings.

King of the (S)Hill Arbitrator Award for all-time (to-date) goes to Victor Waid! Rounding out the Top 50:

Victor Waid
Joseph Nardulli
Steven Schneider
James Knotter
Sally Williams
Ronald Kahn
Urs Martin Lauchli
Coralie Kupfer
Anita Shapiro
Venetta Tassopulos
Joe Henderson
Kendall Reed
Adrienne Jennings
Robert McMillan
David Makous
Sheldon Michaels
Jeffery Carlson
Stephen Blumberg
Stephen Biersmith
Jonathan Krotinger
Bradley Webb
Robert Briggs
Patrick Huang
Steven Bromberg
Jeff Ferentz
Carol Medof
Arnold Wuhrman
Richard Wharton
Yolanda Jackson
Daniel Yamshon
Jerome Posell
Lawrence Crispo
Paul DeCicco
C. Ferguson
Michael Timpane
Robert Niemann
Douglas Noll
Arthur Berggren
L. Boden
Guenter Cohn
Alan Halkett
Samuel Jackson
John Carson
Mark Topper
Eve Wagner
Morton Orenstein
W. Wailes
Robert Bosso
Richard Reinjohn
Herbert Katz

A class action lawsuit has been filed in United States District Court for the Central District of California, by Millberg LLP.

The suit claims to represent a class of those using the National Arbitration Forum services from a period beginning in 2006. Defendants named are the National Arbitration Forum, both the LLC, and Inc. entities. All the known hedge fund entities identified by the Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson, are also named as defendants, as is Mann Bracken.

Read the complaint against the National Arbitration Forum and Mann Bracken here. (PDF format)

Public Citizen Continues their Assault on the State of Arbitration

Today, Public Citizen released another report, as part of their ongoing assault on the edifice of Arbitration. In this latest lambaste of the state-of-the-art, Public Citizen points out that 'arbitration is ubiquitous in many industries', and titled their report "Unfair and Everywhere". Unfair-And-Everywhere.pdfRead the report here.

As this author is wont to point out, arbitration is the outsourcing of societies' civil justice, your right to a judge and a jury. At least, this public policy/ societal outsourcing should maintain the intent and the foundation of law. The corporate usurpation of the process is the issue.

The Public Citizen is follow through on the Fall 2007 report from Public Citizen "Arbitration Trap" and is on the heels of this summer's capitulation of the National Arbitration Forum to Minnesota State Attorney General's lawsuit (READ THE LAWSUIT HERE). Of particular note is Public Citizens' tactics with the call centers of American Express, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, (see the report footnotes 29, 30, 33), all of which exploit those call centers' machinations to expose the business practices of these firms. In several noteworthy passages, Public Citizen catches employees of these corporations referring callers to 'the department that knows". As it turns out, the National Arbitration Forum is answering these inquiries, as the "customer service department that know about arbitration." (this was an American Express call center - see page 9 of the Public Citizen report "Unfair and Everywhere").

The Public Citizen report is an admirable data hash. The report give a good overview of arbitration usage in the banking and cell phone industry, as well as computer manufacturing. Homebuilders, brokerages, cable and internet providers, and automobile dealers' use of arbitration round out the 24 paqe report. This is a must read!