Arbitration > Empiricism

The plaintiff in Diggs v. Citigroup, Inc. sought to resist arbitration of an employment dispute, relying upon a study by Cornell professor Alex Colvin that concluded: “there is a large gap in outcomes between the employment arbitration and litigation forums, with employees obtaining significantly less favorable outcomes in arbitration.”  No. 13-10138 (Jan. 8, 2014, unpublished).  The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision to exclude the study under Daubert, noting that the study was not connected to this dispute and examined data from 5 years before its initiation.  The Court also questioned — without resolving — the validity of comparing arbitration statistics from 2003-07 with litigation statistics from the late 1990s.