Should I Sign A Voluntary Arbitration Agreement
Finally, forced arbitrations often entail much higher costs than using the public justice system, but recent evidence shows that employees subject to forced arbitration rarely assert claims. This allows employers who violate worker protection laws to continue to do so without being held accountable for their actions. Since arbitration agreements are particularly common in the employment context, you may have signed one at some point. While an arbitration agreement may be contained in a separate document, it is often presented as a clause in a broader contract. For example, employment contracts often contain arbitration clauses that state that you and your employer agree that all matters relating to the overall contract should be settled by arbitration and not by the courts. It is important to remember that national contract law determines whether an arbitration agreement is applicable. While arbitration agreements are generally correct, the specific laws of a state cannot impose a specific arbitration agreement based on the facts of that case or contract. The question of consideration in contract law is a good example of how this works. An important concept in contract law is that a valid contract must be based on appropriate “consideration”. This means that for the application of a treaty, the usefulness of the treaty must be negotiated, in other words, each party receives something of value in exchange for something else of value. In arbitration proceedings, you gain an advantage for the employer by agreeing to settle future claims and therefore, in return, you should receive something valuable. For example, if an arbitration agreement is signed as part of the original employment contract, your employment may be a valid consideration – you give up your rights to possible legal action in exchange for a job.
However, what constitutes a valid consideration in the context of employment varies from one State to another. For example, in Baker v. Bristol Care, Inc., the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that an arbitration agreement was not considered if the agreement was based on job retention (after the worker had already been hired). Thus, the Missouri court held that the employee`s continued employment was not valuable enough to constitute consideration for the benefit obtained by the employer (the arbitration agreement) and that, therefore, the agreement was not enforceable for lack of consideration. The courts of another State could, under the same conditions, have a different result on the basis of the contract law of that State. For example, in Arnold v. Burger King, where an employee claimed she had been raped by a superior during her work, the Ohio State Court overturned a forced arbitration agreement signed by the employee. The Tribunal found that the arbitration agreement was procedurally unscrupulous and unscrupulous in substance, given the difference in bargaining power between the parties, in that it sought to include a right to rape in its broad scope. . .
.
Follow me!
