Arbitrator army trained in Fort Collins

FORT COLLINS — The Fort Collins Better Business Bureau has recruited and trained a platoon of volunteer arbitrators to help consumers settle nettlesome conflicts over ruined jackets, lemon cars or shoddy contracting.

During three days this month, 13 Fort Collins residents who responded to a BBB advertisement learned what they can do to help feuding parties who want to steer their cases from a path that leads to court.

“The majority of cases that come to the BBB are settled and never get to arbitration,´ said Emily Fitzsimmons, a dispute resolution training specialist for the Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc. “For those that don’t, binding arbitration is a good alternative.”

Fitzsimmons and partner Warren Prescott train the arbitrators who handle the disputes for the local Better Business Bureaus around the country. They tell students it’s not an easy task, but it’s rarely boring.

“The most important skills are listening, fact-finding, being able to be impartial,” Prescott said.

Binding arbitration has become more popular simply because the court system has become such a chore to work through.

“I’ve spent more time in a court room than most judges and many lawyers,´ said Tom Cavanagh, a retired court reporter who was one of Fitzsimmon’s and Prescott’s students.

“I can tell you that court is miserable experience. It is stressful, it is time-consuming and the overall price is way beyond people’s expectations before they get in it. The people are frustrated with the whole process. This is much more beneficial.”

The court experience that binding arbitration most closely resembles is small claims court. However, the procedure does not follow the formal rules of evidence that courts insist upon. Parties to arbitration can also bring lawyers to BBB hearing as long as you notify the bureau eight days in advance.

The rules are simple: The two parties show up at a hearing, present their sides of the case and any witness testimony they feel is relevant.

“The arbitrator will ask questions of both parties and allow the parties to question one another,´ said Prescott. The arbitrator will try to determine the cause of the problem and the scope. If the dispute is over a car, for example, the arbitrator will try to determine if the vehicle is substantially impaired by the problem.

Best of all, arbitration saves time.

“Mediation and arbitration are much faster than court and more economical,´ said Sara Boots-Whitfield, a former Larimer County Sheriff’s Department employee who signed up for arbitrator training so she’d have a chance to exercise her investigative skills. “There’s a 40-day period in which the decision is made. In litigation, it can be a year or more.”

Frustration with the courtroom experience is the main reason Cavanagh decided to become an arbitrator for the BBB.

“In arbitration, people get to tell you their story,´ said Cavanagh. “I think people need validation and we aren’t subject to the formal rules of evidence that a court is. People want to tell their story in their way and frequently court rules won’t allow it. They don’t mind losing as much if they get to tell their story.”

Arbitrator volunteers are often community-minded. Rick Reider, a venture capitalist and arbitrator for the New York Stock Exchange for 17 years, volunteered for the job because it was a perfect form of community service.

“The ones I’m involved with now involve hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars,” Reider said. “They involve discharges, fraud and improper sales practices. This differs in that it’s in the community. The disputes are local businesses or auto manufacturers. It’s worth a couple of hours here or there to help people who are angry or upset so that they can get on with their lives.”

Dennis Houska, of Houska Automotive, has been an expert witness is a few arbitration hearings and has been fascinated with the procedure.

“I’ve usually been called in and asked, RCan this happen?’ Houska said. “And I answer yes, no or it’s possible, but unlikely.”

He signed up for arbitration training because the hearings he had been in reminded him of his college days when he was thinking about being a union arbitrator instead of a mechanic.

“It’s really a good education,” Houska said. “It teaches you how to think through a case and what the important points are.”

While BBB arbitration can cover disputes that involve consumer products and services. It’s not a cure-all. It cannot deal with criminal violations, product liability claims, personal injury claims, claims that have been resolved by a previous court action or arbitration, or claims where no product deficiency is cited.

Time constraints are also imposed by BBB arbitration. A claim must be filed within one year of the transaction date, or within the company’s warranty period, whichever is longer.

If a consumer wins in arbitration, the ruling can provide for:

* full or partial refund of the cost of the product or service, including the sales tax and other direct incidental costs associated with the service;

* completion of promised work or fulfillment of contractual obligations;

* repairs, or reimbursement for the cost of repairs to a defective product;

* out-of-pocket loss or property damage, not to exceed $2,500, caused by the provision of the service.

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