A Tale of Two Forums

Employment Discrimination Outcomes in Arbitration and Litigation

Bibliographic Data

ID3349204
AuthorsMark D Gough (0000-0002-0455-3601, Mark Gough is an Assistant Professor in the School of Labor and Employment Relations, Pennsylvania State University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume74
Issue4
Pages875-897
Publication date2021-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueIndustrial and Labor Relations Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0019-7939 • E-ISSN: 2162-271X
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0019793920915876
OpenAlexW3019265099
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited17

This article presents data from a novel survey of 1,256 employment plaintiff attorneys to test whether employee rights and remedies are affected by mandatory employment arbitration. By surveying attorneys directly about their most recent employment discrimination cases taken to verdict in arbitration and civil litigation, the author presents a systematic empirical comparison of outcomes between civil courts and arbitration with robust controls. The ability to control for the legal basis of the claim, defendant size, use of summary judgment, and attorney and plaintiff characteristics significantly improves on previous empirical research studies. Consistent with previous research, employee win rates in arbitration are lower than those found in state and federal court. In addition, monetary award amounts and percentage of claim amount awarded to employees who prevail in their cases are significantly lower in arbitration compared to outcomes in state and federal jury trials

Arbitration · Business · Compulsory arbitration · Empirical research · Employment discrimination · Jury · Plaintiff · Political science · State (computer science) · Test (biology) · Verdict · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems · Regulation and Compliance Studies

Tools

Open DOI