Hacker News Reader

Comment by chimeracoder | Hacker News Reader

> "Workers also get less money when they're successful: $109,000 in arbitration compared to $575,000 in state court" (quotes pulled from a digg summary)

There is definitely a difference, but that has to be adjusted for the difference in expenses as well. For an employee who is successful, arbitration is also a lot cheaper than a court case.

View on HN

No its not because the kinds of employment cases that can net $575k in court are typically taken on contingency by the plaintiff's lawyers.

> No its not because the kinds of employment cases that can net $575k in court are typically taken on contingency by the plaintiff's lawyers.

"Contingency" doesn't mean it's free. If the case is won (which is the situation we're talking about), the lawyer gets paid out of the net recovery.

Typically a third and would obviously still come out way ahead if you do the basic math.

> Typically a third and would obviously still come out way ahead if you do the basic math.

Yes, typically 33-45%. As I said in the original comment:

> There is definitely a difference, but that has to be adjusted for the difference in expenses as well

So it’s somewhere between double and triple the award considering costs. That’s huge and if your point isn't purely pedantic then I’m missing it.

FWIW, the article also claimed that workers tried to resolve differences using arbitrations less often. Assuming that's true, hard to prove the direction of causation, but it's another point to consider.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com