On December 21, 2006 the court of Lycoming Pennsylvania in an order and opinion denied Quixtar arbitration in Quixtar’s claims of defamation against former Amway founder’s Emerald distributor and vocal Amway/Quixtar critic, Eric Scheibeler.
Scheibeler had filed with the Pennsylvania court for a declaratory judgment to deny the arbitration claim.
In a stinging defeat for Quixtar’s premium outside counsel, Brinks Hofer and the attorney filing the arbitration demand, Robert Sobieraj, the court basically confirmed what was intuitively obvious at the beginning and that is that the arbitration agreement cannot be brought into force against a person who has been out of the Quixtar business for years. Judge Dorr issued his opinion that Quixtar’s arbitration process was unconscionable, anyone entering into arbitration with them can question whether they will even get a fair hearing.
The main points cited in the opinion denying arbitration were that Scheibeler has not been an Amway/Quixtar distributor for years and that the introduction of the Quixtar arbitration was made on a “take it or leave” basis. The opinion also stated that Amway/Quixtar/Alticor could take their complaints against Scheibeler in a public court if they wished to pursue the issue of defamation.
It makes no sense that an agreement to arbitrated disputes arising out of or relating to an Amway distributorship signed in 1997 would forever prohibit the free speech rights of an individual who is simply voicing criticisms of Amway nine years after signing an agreement to arbitrate. Where in the agreement to arbitrate does it say that an individual such as Mr. Scheibeler will forever give up his rights to offer criticism of Amway or its practices. The court believes the interpretation of Defendant Amway-Quixtar that the arbitration agreement would somehow still apply to public comment is far too expansive an interpretation of their arbitration system and the logical purpose and role of the system.
Also: Amway vs. Scheibeler court decision as plain text as transcribed by the optical character recognition from Adobe Acrobat. Freedom of Mind is not responsible for the accuracy of the OCR rendering.
This is a summary extract from the full article as it appeared on Amway Quixtar Info Full Article [Cached]
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