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WARNING: Just Say NO to JAMS
Do NOT accept arbitration by the Judicial Arbitration and Mediation
Service (JAMS). The April 1995 Newsletter reported at length on women's
problems with JAMS mediation and also told the story of Christine McGill and
Burnet Sumner who were held to what they thought was a preliminary
agreement reached during a high-pressure JAMS hearing. Now Gloria Ryan has
also been victimized by JAMS.
Ryan had been a pathology technician at UC San Diego for over twenty
years when a new supervising physician demanded unpaid work and otherwise
created a hostile environment that drove all five women to leave his lab (all
the replacements were men). When the University offered her only $50,000 in
settlement she opted for JAMS arbitration.
She was assured she would be told the procedural rules and given the
background on the judge she would have, but was unable to learn any of this.
At the hearing, her judge refused to let the proceedings be recorded, turned
his back and avoided looking at her, rummaged under his desk while she
testified, and then he gave her gave her nothing Ñ a $0 settlement after a
travesty of judicial process.
Now the University is demanding $253,000 for their legal costs. They
are seeking a judgment that will wipe the Ryans out, and at the same time
are offering to forgive this if she will drop her worker's compensation claim
and a malpractice suit against a UCSD therapist who revealed confidential
information that UC used against her.
The sordid details of this case reveal the unprincipled tactics UC
employs to defend its bad record. They also confirm the suspicion that JAMS
arbitrators are beholden to the University for their work and are not to be
trusted.
-wage@wage.org-