Current Events > Chipotle's Mandatory Arbitration Agreements Are Backfiring Spectacularly

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chipotle-mandatory-arbitration-agreements_us_5c1bda0de4b0407e90787abd

When the Epic ruling came down, Chipotle was dealing with a collective action lawsuit involving roughly 10,000 current and former workers who said Chipotle systematically stiffed them on pay, violating minimum wage and overtime regulations. But nearly 3,000 of those workers had signed arbitration agreements.

As HuffPost reported in August, the judge in the case, John Kane, ruled that the Epic decision compelled him to expel those plaintiffs from the suit. That was precisely the outcome Chipotle had been hoping for.

But instead of taking their claims and going home, more than 150 of those workers filed requests for arbitration.

Unlike a collective- or class-action lawsuit, all of those claims would be administered separately, and they could get very expensive for Chipotle. A single case can run tens of thousands of dollars in lawyers fees and payments to the arbitrator service in this case, JAMS. The cost of litigating can dwarf the actual damages.

If you start running the numbers on this thing, arbitration costs could top $30,000 or $50,000 [each], said Williams. If hundreds or thousands of workers pursue cases, You get up to, like, tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars very quickly, just in arbitration expenses.

Under the arbitration rules, Williams said, the cases would be heard in the county where Chipotle last employed the worker in question, meaning the claims would be spread out all over the country. Chipotle has roughly 2,400 locations, according to its latest SEC filings. If so many cases were to move forward, they would present a logistical nightmare for the company.

lmfao

@Godnorgosh
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Good, fuck that place.
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the judge is blasting them lol

The judge ruled against Chipotle yet again, and leveled a withering critique of the companys legal strategy: Chipotles attempts to delay and obfuscate the claims of the Arbitration Plaintiffs in both the courts and in arbitration (the forum to which it required these employees to submit) are unseemly.

Congesting the federal courts with countless appeals to prolong arbitration proceedings for numerous employees provides no benefit to the public and flouts the efficient resolution Chipotle professes to seek, the judge scolded.

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Good, although this isn't a Chipotle specific problem. These types of agreements are very common and exist in a lot of areas outside of employment. A lot of large companies have turned to these types of contractual terms because it has limited the ability for consumers to pursue legal redress when the companies fuck around. Forced arbitration is usually bull shit and courts should be doing more to prevent it from happening.
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