arbitration under seige

Mike Maslanka

i see that some courts are throwing out arbitration agreements if they require the employee to split the cost of the arbitration...the idea is that an employee who wins a title 7 case gets attorney fees and costs as part of the award,and requiring a winning arbitration employee to split the cost of the arbitration is inconsistent with title 7...is anyone revising their agreements in light of this development?...mike maslanka,214-659-4668

Margaret Morford

Mike,

Does that mean that if the company wins, they can recover their arbritration costs?

Margaret Morford
theHRedge

Mike Maslanka

under title 7,a winning employee gets 100% of her attorney fees,plus recovery of all costs...a winning employer gets only,except in exceptional circumstances,an award of costs(copying etc)...the cases are now saying that this title 7 scheme is frustrated by arbitration agreements which require,say,the employee to pick up a big share of the arbitration cost---it puts her ,if she wins,in a worse position than under title 7 if she went to court and won...mike maslanka

Down_the_Middle

I'm not planning to revise our arbitration agreements becuz our employees incur a sliding scale cost with $200.00 as max. My understanding is some of these courts are determining that the employees cost is excessive and therefore a problem. A bigger issue for me is the current trend for courts to declare the arbitration agreement unenforceable when the employee can show that arbitration costs might be greater than those of a judicial process.

Any concerns on your part about this "trend"?

Mike Maslanka

and it gets worse... a texas court just said that an arbitration agreement was invalid if the employee promised to arbitrate any of her claims against the employer,but the employer did not promise to arbitarte any of its claims against the employee...many arbitration agreements may not have mutual language because the idea at the outset of the interest in arbitration was to compel employees to go to arbitration on their claims...so,here's our counsel:do a check up of your arbitration agreements in light of these recent developments...regards from the lone star state,mike maslanka,214-659-4668

WOCO Frank

The ruling of the Texas court is consistent with the "goose & gander" provisions most arbitration agreements need to follow; that is, what's good for the goose (the employee) is good for the gander (the employer).

Our agreement provides that the arbitrator determines what costs can be recovered by the winning party.