Arbitration defended

Re “About that day in court,” Opinion, March 3

I remain unconvinced that binding arbitration is detrimental to anyone but trial lawyers. While Peggy Garrity’s example of workplace sexual assault is certainly harrowing, I can tell many more stories, from my experience alone, of unbridled assault by trial lawyers on decent, middle-class small-business owners. These lawsuits, sometimes based on fully fabricated injurious events, raise consumer prices, bankrupt businesses and destroy families with the full support of lawyers’ professional associations that call it justice.

I’m sure there are businesses that do in fact trample on the rights, dignity and safety of their employees. Arbitration will allow those so aggrieved to seek redress without inherent bias. But lawyers have woefully abused their position as champions of the truly injured and should be forced to step aside while our society seeks a better way to protect everyone’s rights.

Juliet Hotchkiss

Oak Park

Garrity excoriates the process of arbitration based on the unfortunate experiences of two women who were victimized in Iraq. Arbitration clauses sometimes can lead to unfair consequences, often in unusual circumstances such as under the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Contrary to Garrity’s assertions that arbitration clauses are a product of a justice system gone awry, arbitration provides an economical, expeditious and equitable method of deciding disputes. In the court system, a judge is randomly assigned to a case and paid by parties as taxpayers. Justice is no less served, and often better served, by a retired judge who is selected, approved and paid by the parties to act as an arbitrator.

Charles G. Rubin

Los Angeles

The writer is a retired Superior Court judge.