Homeowners can sue builders over defects
Iowans who find defects in their homes can sue contractors for work-related damages years after the fact, even if they bought the house from previous owners, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled today. The court’s 6-0 decision reverses two lower-court rulings against a Clive couple, Mike and Bev Speight, who had tried to sue Walters Development Co. for water damage to their home. In 2005, the couple discovered that they could stick their fingers into the siding of their house, and found water spilling into their basement caused by faulty shingles and rain gutters. “We believe that Iowa law should follow the modern trend allowing a subsequent purchaser to recover against a builder for a breach of the implied warranty of workmanlike construction,” Justice Jerry Larson wrote in the 14-page ruling. Read Decision...

Binding Mandatory Arbitration Reform
A series of United States Supreme Court decisions have changed the meaning of the [Federal Arbitration] Act so that it now extends to disputes between parties of greatly disparate economic power, such as consumer disputes and employment disputes. As a result, a large and rapidly growing number of corporations are requiring millions of consumers and employees to give up their right to have disputes resolved by a judge or a jury, and instead submit their claims to binding arbitration.

The Ten Best Public Policies of 2007
The Arbitration Fairness Act, proposed this year in the United States Senate by Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI), protects against clandestine decision-making and corporate favoritism by invalidating pre-dispute BMA "agreements" between parties of unequal bargaining power. For safeguarding the right to trial by jury, where a body of law protects the rights of producer, consumer, employer, and employee alike, the AFA is one of the best policies of 2007.

How arbitration steals your day in court
If I told you there was a courtroom in America where consumers lose lawsuits to businesses 94 percent of the time, and there is no chance to appeal, you'd probably never want to go there.While you may have never heard of binding mandatory arbitration, it is part of nearly every significant transaction you engage in now. It's also become a controversial battleground over consumer protection in America, and on Thursday Congress held hearings debating legislation that would largely nullify many arbitration agreements. Binding mandatory arbitration clauses crept into consumer contracts during the late 1990s and are now standard practice. They arrived in the name of efficiency and tort reform... Public Citizen found one arbitrator had ruled 1,292 times during the span -- and only 21 times for the consumer. On one particularly busy day, he ruled on 68 cases -- all in favor of companies.

Bills aim to get consumers their day in court
Just a few years ago, Congress, then controlled by Republicans, made it a priority to limit litigation against businesses, expressing concerns about the costly burden it imposed. Now, with Democrats in charge, legislation is advancing that could lead to more court fights between consumers and businesses.

Business Fights for the Tilted Arbitration Field: Susan Antilla
At a hearing in Washington yesterday, consumer advocate Richard M. Alderman sat before a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary committee and quoted from a grade school textbook: The legislative branch makes the laws, the executive branch carries them out, and the judicial branch explains what they mean.

Mandatory Binding Arbitration Means Alleged Halliburton Rapists Could Go Free
A woman who filed a civil lawsuit against Halliburton for being the victim of a gang rape by her coworkers in Iraq will have her day in court, kangaroo court, thanks to the mandatory binding arbitration clause in her employment contract. Jamie Leigh Jones says she was drugged and raped by her fellow workers, then imprisoned inside a shipping container and left without food or water until the US embassy came to rescue after the State Department got calls from her father. She says she was told she would be fired if she sought medical treatment.

The Quest for a Car, Sans Arbitration Clause
The car salesman warned us that we wouldn’t be able to buy a car anywhere without signing a contract containing this arbitration clause, as it’s known. Even so, we were indignant and vowed to shop on Craigslist... I contacted a half-dozen car dealerships in the Washington, D.C. area and asked them in advance if their contracts included an arbitration clause, and if so, if they'd take it out. All the dealers used the clause, and none would remove it...The bank agreement was worse than the sales contract we'd walked away from a month earlier at the dealership.

PIABA Supports Feingold Johnson Proposal to Ban Mandatory Arbitration
Laurence S. Schultz, President of the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association, presented PIABA's statement yesterday to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution, in support of The Arbitration Fairness Act of 2007...Schultz said that PIABA strongly supports a ban on mandatory arbitration and challenged American industry's efforts to enforce mandatory arbitration and deny the public access to the court system. "Under our Constitution there are three branches of government -- legislative, executive and judicial-- and corporate America is in the process of effectively eliminating the judicial branch of our government for American consumers by denying them their Constitutional right to use the court system. Entire industries in this country are forcing consumers out of court and into mandatory arbitration as a condition of buying basic goods and services."