News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:The Customer Service Reps for Disney and Airbnb Who Have ... by Beldin on Monday December 26, 2022 @03:18AM (#34135761)
That depends on (1) whether future arbitration cases are guaranteed the same outcome as those already settled, and (2) whether this outcome becomes as generally known amongst victims as a class action lawsuit would be.

Lastly: I'm not a corporate lawyer, so I don't know what legal reasons a company has to prefer arbitration over legal procedures. But they must have some. And those reasons are unlikely to lead to worse outcomes for the company.

Re:The Customer Service Reps for Disney and Airbnb Who Have ... by BartjeD on Monday December 26, 2022 @03:51AM (#34135923)
Arbitration is a contentious legal issue, despite being present in many types of contracts.

It is contentious because legal research has repeatedly demonstrated that there are legal fields in which for an undetermined reason the plaintiff faces far longer odds than they would have in court.

This concerns arbitrations that in 90% of cases are in favor of the defendant. While in 'normal' case law you see rates closer to 60%. (Yes the research also accounted for cost differences by comparing similar classes of cases, no-cure-no-pay etc..)

It is also suspected that the plaintif usually gets less compensation for damages through arbitration.

Another issue is that arbitrators sometimes earn a lot money and are obviously incentivised to attract 'customers'. The problem is that there are and will always be many more plaintiffs than there are defendants. So the selection of arbitrators depends on decisions by the future-defendants. (Unless a specific organisation is legally mandated, but I've not encountered this before)

Re:The Customer Service Reps for Disney and Airbnb Who Have ... by fallingknife on Monday December 26, 2022 @09:03AM (#34137681)
How do they measure the number of cases that go either way? I assume this excludes settlements? If so it would explain the discrepancy. Arbitration is so much cheaper than going to trial that it would make sense to try a weaker case just based on risk vs reward.
Re:The Customer Service Reps for Disney and Airbnb Who Have ... by bozhark on Monday December 26, 2022 @04:00AM (#34135970)
Arbitration is the HR of workers rights