4 responses so far ↓

• 1 Brian Moore // Oct 12, 2009 at 10:10 am

  Certainly I’m ignorant on this subject, but I didn’t think you could sign away your right to press charges for a criminal offense in a contract:

  “Jones was prevented from bringing charges in court against KBR because her employment contract stipulated that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration.”

  The fact that I’m confused about this makes me wonder if I missed something in reading the article. I can’t imagine any situation where it would be legal for a company to stop someone from pressing charges against anyone for sexual assault.

• 2 Amy // Oct 12, 2009 at 2:24 pm

  It’s not the criminal charges. (though I’d imagine she’d have trouble bringing criminal charges against any individual who attacked her in a foreign country. If anything, she’d probably have to have them arrested and charged in Iraq under Iraqi law). She wants to be able to sue the company for failing to protect her and/or for having policies that resulted in her attack and imprisonment.

• 3 Brian Moore // Oct 13, 2009 at 2:44 pm

  Okay, that helps explain it a bit. But I didn’t think you could sign that away either — you can say “you have to go to arbitration, but if that doesn’t work you can still sue.” Wouldn’t every company put that in their contracts if you could? There has to be a way to hammer these idiots.

• 4 Amy // Oct 16, 2009 at 10:50 am

  That’s why they call it “binding” arbitration. If you don’t like the result of the arbitration, you’re stuck with it, and you’ve signed away your right to sue. And nearly every major company does put that in their contracts. Read your cell phone contract or your credit card agreement some time.