She began to worry, though, once she was blocked from court and forced into private arbitration.
Presiding over the case was not a judge but a corporate lawyer, Vasilios J. Kalogredis, who also handled arbitrations. When Ms. Pierce showed up one day for a hearing, she said she noticed Mr. Kalogredis having a friendly coffee with the head of the medical group she was suing.
Alan Carlson, a restaurant owner and chef, was involved in a 2003 class-action suit against American Express. A decade later, a Supreme Court ruling enabled American Express to prevent merchants from bringing class actions.Beware the Fine Print:
During the proceedings, the practice withheld crucial evidence, including audiotapes it destroyed, according to interviews and documents. Ms. Pierce thought things could not get any worse until a doctor reversed testimony she had given in Ms. Pierce’s favor. The reason: Male colleagues had “clarified” her memory.
When Mr. Kalogredis ultimately ruled against Ms. Pierce, his decision contained passages pulled, verbatim, from legal briefs prepared by lawyers for the medical practice, according to documents.
“It took away my faith in a fair and honorable legal system,” said Ms. Pierce, who is still paying off $200,000 in legal costs seven years later.
If the case had been heard in civil court, Ms. Pierce would have been able to appeal, raising questions about testimony, destruction of evidence and potential conflicts of interest.
But arbitration, an investigation by The New York Times has found, often bears little resemblance to court.
Over the last 10 years, thousands of businesses across the country — from big corporations to storefront shops — have used arbitration to create an alternate system of justice. There, rules tend to favor businesses, and judges and juries have been replaced by arbitrators who commonly consider the companies their clients, The Times found.
