Texas Court Finalizes KB Home Arbitration Class Action Lawsuit
Laredo District Court Judge Solomon Casseb Tuesday approved a court supervised class action settlement of Timothy D. Pruitt vs. KB Home, which prohibits KB Home from requiring past, present or future customers to consent to mandatory binding arbitration for the settlement of warranty claims...Last month HomeOwners for Better Building obtained documents which appear to confirm that KB Home has again disregarded the FTC consent order and the terms of the of the new class action settlement.  While under the court provisional certification of the class action, the company referred at least one homeowner with major foundation problems to its third party warranty provider Home of Texas, who denied the claim and notified the homeowner to submit to Binding Arbitration, conducted by Construction Arbitration Services (CAS). See copy of documents – KB’s warranty provider request for binding arbitration, March 30, 2006: KB Defies FTC 
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KB Home Settles Class Action Binding Arbitration Case
The settlement Wednesday of a class-action lawsuit against KB Home over a binding arbitration clause in homebuyer’s warranties will affect thousands of Texas homeowners...With the settlement of this class-action suit it effectively declares that KB Home and its subsidiaries binding arbitration clauses are invalid, and that homeowners can now sue KB Home in a court of law rather than being forced into binding arbitration over construction defects.

KB Home agrees to drop arbitration from warranties
KB Home agreed Wednesday to drop binding arbitration from its customer warranties as part of a class-action lawsuit settlement.

Mandatory Arbitration Clauses Reduce Consumer Rights
When American consumers sign contracts — for credit cards, bank loans, mortgages or telephone service — language in the fine print often waives their right to employ the full extent of the law should the company violate the contract...The fine print of many contracts says consumers "waive the right to go to court" to resolve any disputes about a product or service. They are instead committed to binding arbitration... Claybrook says the system is flawed. "The process completely favors the corporation," she said. "The corporation does repeat business with the arbitration company and if the company routinely finds in favor of consumers or gives large awards to consumers, they don't get used again."

Off the Kuff
Building influence
Here's an interesting article from the This Week section of the Chron regarding an acrimonious and public battle between a disgruntled homebuyer named Jordan Fogal and the builder who constructed her house, Tremont Homes... Let's start with the baseless attack on civil juries, something that I've noted before. Just once, I'd like to see a reporter ask someone who offers such an opinion if they hold similar feelings about juries in criminal trials... Attacking juries like this is cynical, dishonest, and really quite insulting, since after all everyone reading this is a potential juror. That this now seems to be a standard talking point for the homebuilding industry certainly doesn't give me any faith in their preferred system of arbitration...But what really gets me is the last quoted sentence. The lawyer for the builders is also an arbitrator for the AAA, which is the group used to rule on these builder/buyer disputes.