Does Frank Gormlie approve of our biased arbitration system? Or is he simply not paying attention?

Frank Gormlie

UPDATE APRIL 11, 2014:

Omar Passons seems to cultivate a lot of friends in the media in addition to Frank Gormlie. Mr. Passons has apparently charmed Scott Lewis, CEO of Voice of San Diego, whose office is just across the courtyard from Mr. Passons' office at Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz. Passon's handsome face is featured frequently in the rotation of photos at the top of VOSD's web pages.

Does this photo look familiar? It's Omar Passons' image from the header of a VOSD web page.

Stutz law firm must be delighted to have such loyal friends in the media. Dan Shinoff, one of the three major partners of Stutz law firm, must have been very grateful when Mr. Lewis not only stopped Emily Alpert's investigation of Mr. Shinoff and his benefactors at SDCOE, but fired her for good measure! But now that so many public officials who were (and still are) clients of Stutz law firm have been indicted, perhaps the media might want to rethink the amount of cheerleading it does for the firm. Why is Mr. Gormlie silent about this issue? Does he assume that no children are being harmed? If so, he's very wrong. But at least he's a good pal to his lawyer friends.


ORIGINAL POST (UPDATED):

I was surprised to see that OB Rag's Frank Gormlie included attorney Omar Passons' blog in his list of "independent and progressive blogs" last August. Passons is certainly not progressive. Just because he's African-American doesn't mean he isn't working for the 1%. I imagine he's about as independent as is expedient for him as an employee of Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz law firm. Perhaps the marketing director at Stutz law firm urged the hiring of Mr. Passons to help with public relations.

Maybe Mr. Gormlie hasn't been paying attention. The following appeared in Voice of San Diego last May.

Justice for Sale, Part One: Arbitration Purgatory
By: Will Carless
Voice of San Diego
May 20, 2013
See Part 2 HERE.
See Part 3 HERE.

...Companies across the country insert wording into their small-print contracts that bars consumers from taking them to court...

The contracts require consumers to settle disputes in arbitration, a private form of conflict resolution. As mandatory arbitration clauses have become ubiquitous, companies have carved out a world of justice that some insiders and academics say is deeply flawed and biased against consumers...

Not only do corporations write arbitration into their contracts, they’re also increasingly stipulating the exact company or organization that will facilitate the arbitration. “It is almost impossible for us not to be self-serving,” says one arbitrator. Another disagrees...

Perz said an independent expert he hired concluded the car had probably been submerged in water, causing the electrics to fail and rotting the vehicle’s frame with rust. Perz decided he couldn’t in good faith sell it to recoup his money...

Arbitration is supposed to provide a cheaper and quicker way to settle legal disputes than the court system. But academics, attorneys, plaintiffs and even an independent arbitrator contacted for this story described arbitration as an uneven playing field, with consumers facing an uphill battle from the start...

In California, most arbitrators are affiliated with one of several large organizations. The largest is the American Arbitration Association (AAA); another big one is JAMS (formerly Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services). Both have offices in San Diego. Both companies declined to comment for this story...

“In no way in my wildest dreams did I realize an arbitration agreement would allow them to do this,” he said. “It’s so frustrating. It’s just heartbreaking.”


COMMENTS BY OMAR PASSONS AND MAURA LARKINS

"Most people, particularly the people to whom the $30.22 is most critical, do not have the time and/or skill to pursue these issues."--Maura Larkins

Omar Passons May 28, 2013

I almost don't know where to begin. A 3-part series and you dedicate 3 sentences in the final part of the series to the opposing view? Wow. $30.22 is enough to buy food for almost a week, so it's nothing to shake a stick at.

But the ATT Mobility case is the paradigmatic example of why we need class action reform. You left out that the Concepcions only had to fill out a 1-page form to have their issues heard. And you left out that their MINIMUM recovery if they were right on their $30 claim as $7500. And you left out that they had the option to pursue their $30 claim in small claims court, where there are no lawyers and the judges are very relaxed with the rules, if they didn't want arbitration.

You also left out that class action cases can very easily cost more than $100,000 before you even address whether anyone did anything wrong. The "liability" portion of a class action doesn't even really get going until a judge certifies a class. I get it, your a journalist, not a lawyer, but as I mentioned previously there are plenty of lawyers around town who would give you a more fair picture. Or, for that matter, call any in-house lawyer for any large company. Or better, call the CFO. These cases are huge sources of awards for attorneys, not so much for the little guy or woman you claim is being so wronged by class waivers.

Your article also fails to acknowledge that there is no requirement that people actually have been wronged to bring a class action suit. They just need a few plaintiffs to be willing to stand in as the named plaintiffs and then a very expensive fishing expedition can begin to attempt to find people who are actually wronged. And put all this aside for a moment. The whole reason class actions exist is to create a way to make people whole when there is no incentive for them to bring the suit on their own. Here, where the barrier to getting your rights vindicated is a one-page form and a telephone call, there is almost no fear of it not being worth someone's time to file. In fact, with a recovery of more than 1000 times their actual harm I'm surprised everyone who bought an AT&T phone didn't try to use their more than generous dispute resolution procedure. I'm not even a particular supporter of the system of arbitration, it is frequently patently unfair. But this journalism isn't even an attempt to give people enough information to make an informed decision about the topic.


MAURA LARKINS' RESPONSE TO OMAR PASSONS May 28, 2013

Omar, I found that I disagreed with a number of your statements. Here are those statements with my responses:

[Passons] "$30.22 is enough to buy food for almost a week, so it's nothing to shake a stick at."

[Maura Larkins' response] Most people, particularly the people to whom the $30.22 is most critical, do not have the time and/or skill to pursue these issues.

[Passons] But the ATT Mobility case is the paradigmatic example of why we need class action reform.

[Maura Larkins' response]"Paradigmatic"? Why didn't you just say it's a good example? And are you really sure that there is only one paradigmatic example? I doubt that very much. I'm sure many people consider other examples to be more significant in arbitration reform.

[Passons] You left out that the Concepcions only had to fill out a 1-page form to have their issues heard.

[Maura Larkins' response] That's just the start, Omar. Then they have to deal with the big corporation for heaven knows how long.

[Passons] And you left out that their MINIMUM recovery if they were right on their $30 claim as $7500.

[Maura Larkins' response] Since when did arbitration decisions depend on who was "right"? Did you look at the graphic in part 2 of this series? No matter how right the Concepcions might be, they are almost certainly going to lose.

[Passons] And you left out that they had the option to pursue their $30 claim in small claims court, where there are no lawyers and the judges are very relaxed with the rules, if they didn't want arbitration.

[Maura Larkins' response] That would require serving a subpoena on a huge corporation (AT&T) after they discover who it AT&T's agent for service. Then AT&T's lawyers would probably contest everything, including whether service was proper. Then the Concepcions would have to prepare documentation and arguments and go to court. And that still wouldn't guarantee that the judge would side with the little guys against a big corporation.

[Passons] You also left out that class action cases can very easily cost more than $100,000 before you even address whether anyone did anything wrong.

[Maura Larkins' response] That's why you need a big class of people, Omar. So that the payoff will be bigger than the cost.

[Passons] The "liability" portion of a class action doesn't even really get going until a judge certifies a class. I get it, your [sic] a journalist, not a lawyer, but as I mentioned previously there are plenty of lawyers around town who would give you a more fair picture.

[Maura Larkins' response] Don't be patronizing. I think Will got a very fair picture of the situation. And I think there are plenty of lawyers around town who would be happy to give Will an unfair picture.

[Passons] Or, for that matter, call any in-house lawyer for any large company. Or better, call the CFO.

[Maura Larkins' response] We already know AT&T's position. It's in the case pleadings, and in the Supreme Court decision. It's the OTHER side of the story that we need, and Will did a good job on that.

[Passons] These cases are huge sources of awards for attorneys, not so much for the little guy or woman you claim is being so wronged by class waivers.

[Maura Larkins' response] [But the little guy usually can't represent himself effectively. That's why we need lawyers who will represent consumers and make sure that the powerful respect the legal rights of the powerless. Plaintiff lawyers wouldn't have to work so many hours and collect so much pay if there weren't lawyers on the other side being paid big bucks to come up with one reason after another to slow down the case.]

[Passons] Your article also fails to acknowledge that there is no requirement that people actually have been wronged to bring a class action suit. They just need a few plaintiffs to be willing to stand in as the named plaintiffs and then a very expensive fishing expedition can begin to attempt to find people who are actually wronged.

[Maura Larkins' response] [We all know what planet we're on, Omar. Yes, people make false claims all the time. Big corporations are among the worst offenders, making claims that they are owed money when they are not owed anything at all.]

[Passons] Here, where the barrier to getting your rights vindicated is a one-page form and a telephone call, there is almost no fear of it not being worth someone's time to file.

[Maura Larkins' response] [You know very well that you have to do a lot more than fill out one page and make a phone call to get your rights vindicated. And you must have a lot of time on your hands, Omar. Most people go to bed every night wishing they had had time to do things plenty more important than trying to get $30.22 back from AT&T.]

[Passons] In fact, with a recovery of more than 1000 times their actual harm I'm surprised everyone who bought an AT&T phone didn't try to use their more than generous dispute resolution procedure.

[Maura Larkins' response] [If this surprises you, Omar, then you must walk around in a continual state of shock as you observe the incomprehensible behavior of the ordinary people you meet. But I get the feeling that you rarely find the actions of corporations to be anything other than completely reasonable.]

Maura Larkins May 28, 2013

The Concepcion suit never should have been filed in the first place. ATT didn't collect the sales tax, the state did. So to suggest that ATT scammed anybody out of their money is false. It's no wonder companies want to reduce the possibilities of lawsuits when lawyers can talk simple-minded people into filing class actions based on false premises. Carless wants to paint business as the bad guy because that's what he fundamentally believes: that business is bad. Power to the people and all that nonsense. But the sad fact is that if it wasn't for lawyers of questionable moral value hooking up with simpletons, the courts wouldn't be full of bogus lawsuits and our ladders wouldn't have a dozen stickers telling us not to do stupid things. If the lawyers were so worried about the Concepcion's thirty dollars, they should work to rewrite the state law that says the state can collect sales tax on something a company is willing to give away for free.

Who is watching the Watchdog? The San Diego U-T “disappears” its own reporting by moving it

Who is watching the Watchdog? The San Diego U-T “disappears” its own reporting by moving it
by Anna Daniels
OB Rag
August 1, 2011

For those of us who read the news and analysis of the news online, it is not uncommon to find a correction appended to an article or some part of the original text struck through, but still visible, with a modification following it. Online material is uniquely adaptable to quick corrections and updates in the interests of getting a story “right.”

Removing a story, scrubbing it from the site’s archives and replacing it with a completely new version is a jaw dropping breach of journalistic integrity and responsibility. The U-T did precisely that when it wrote that it had “moved” an article written by Wendy Fry on July 25 about the presence of paid “activists” at a series of Chula Vista city council meetings in which rent control in mobile home parks was being deliberated.

I had found Fry’s initial post extremely interesting and wrote about it here. The link that I provided however to Fry’s July 25 article now pulls up a page that says that the story was moved to the Watchdog section and we are invited to read it there.

It is impossible to read that story there because it is not posted there. Instead, there is a rewrite, a total do over dated July 28. It is also authored by Fry but the topic receives a new title and substantively different treatment from the original. This new story was not presented as a correction, update or retraction and the original article has disappeared from the signon archives (Read it here from a non U-T source.) leaving only the reader comments.

It is worth asking why Fry’s South Bay report on a topic that is not a particularly “hot” issue would even merit this kind of treatment. What entity (or entities) was disturbed by the content of the original and capable of exerting sufficient power upon the U-T to receive a rewrite? Who is really involved in this story and to what extent?

The bare bones story presented in both articles is that the Chula Vista city council held two public meetings on an agenda item about current rent control law as it applies to mobile home parks. An overflow crowd of interested parties, a significant number of whom were allegedly compensated by an individual or organization associated with the Republican Party, was able to weigh in on whether to continue rent control for residents or to let that law sunset, and “decontrol” rents with all new tenants. Those compensated individuals were there to oppose the continuance of rent control. The city council voted 4-0 to enable mobile home park owners to increase rent whenever a mobile home is sold, signaling the end of rent control.

If the bare bones of the story were not altered, what did change and why? Fry’s original article used the terms “activists’ and “seat savers” when referring to those who were paid to attend. Both of those terms disappeared completely from her rewrite. Attendees were simply “paid,” provided with “financial incentives” or “compensated,” which creates a significant change in tone from presenting the unusual to the unremarkable. The number of people provided with financial incentives also changed from “about 100” in the original to “at least 50,” which alters the degree of relevance of those compensated.

The question of who was doing the paying has been substantively reworked. She writes in her original article —“In the crowd July 12, a large group of young people wore green ‘Yes on Vacancy Decontrol’ stickers in support of the changes. Some of those attendees told other audience member they were with ‘the Young Republicans of El Cajon’ and that they were each paid $20 to attend.” Yet all allusions to this group as well as to the San Diego County Young Republicans, also quoted, disappear in the subsequent article. Why is that?

In Fry’s second shot at this, she presents a statement from Derrick Roach, the secretary for the Republican Party of San Diego “Roach, a Chula Vista resident, confirmed he helped recruit and pay 50 mobile-home residents to attend the meeting and gave McMurty $40 cash.” These 50 residents were the “seat savers” in Fry’s original article.

Fry goes on to write “Chairman Tony Krvaric said the Republican Party of San Diego County was not responsible for compensating people at the meeting.” This leaves the reader with the mystifying feeling that Krvaric, president, and Roach, secretary of the Republican Party, have never met each other, let alone spoken to each other. When Kravic outrageously responds to her question about who provided the cash behind the handout with “’What do you think? Who had the financial interest in the item? What was the issue being pushed and probably the people pushing the payments,’” and she lets go of that bald contradiction to Roach’s admission, you know it’s all over for the U-T’s reporting. Roach admitted to providing the money and he represents the obvious financial interest. Is Krvaric really trying to obfuscate that fact and why did Fry let him get away with it?

Roach is the fall guy in all this—the rewritten title states “GOP officer paid people to attend council meeting” and his picture is prominently displayed; Krvaric is obviously a person of influence; and it remains unclear whether the “South Bay campaign consultant who runs the politically involved San Diego Group” is a significant player; and there were no interviews in either of the articles of the actual mobile park owners who have a great deal at stake in the issue.

Ray McMurty, age 62 and living on social security disability is grateful for the forty bucks he was paid by the Republican Party and which helped out with his weekly groceries. He publicly states he sees no problem in attending those city council meetings, wearing a sticker in support of “decontrol,” even though he lives in one of the affected mobile home parks. His statements, one of the few included in both articles, provide a transparency lacking in the other interviews. We can assume that he is not the entity which has exerted the power over the U-T for a rewrite.

I do not understand why Fry was given a second chance to “get it right.” It strikes me as an odd opportunity for journalistic redemption, tantamount to writing “I was bad and will never be bad again” on the blackboard 100 times, yet the rewrite still stirs up the soup.

The U-T Watchdog wants us to know that it stands for “Journalism that upholds the public trust, regularly.” The cavalier acts of rewriting its own news and expunging all evidence to the contrary exemplifies an appalling disregard of what constitutes upholding that trust—and the very basis for reporting the news.

SDNN refused press passes by police until they “prove” themselves

San Diego really is a police state: SDNN refused press passes by police until they “prove” themselves
OB Rag
March 26, 2009
by Pat Flannery

I recently got dramatic proof of this shortly after joining a team of young journalists at San Diego News Network, SDNN, a new online news journal. I was supposed to become its political analyst and columnist. I was looking forward to probing the underbelly of San Diego politics with young idealistic journalists. Unfortunately it was not to be.

Unbelievably, the Mayor, through his Police Chief, refused them press credentials until they “prove themselves”. He has put them on a six months probation! After six months of reporting the news to his satisfaction, he may extend press credentials to them. SDNN acquiesced. I quietly withdrew.

In a way, I am not surprised. I was already aware of the control the Mayor and the police have over the local media. They are used to it. There has been only one real training ground for print journalists in San Diego for decades and that has been the Copley press. Many Mayoral and City Council staff are ex-UT people, all nurtured in the same symbiotic coziness. They tear up anybody, like Mike Aguirre, who will not be cozy with them.

What surprised me was how quickly these young SDNN people, barely out of journalism school, accepted it all. How are San Diegans ever going to learn the truth about their city government if the police department, directly under the Mayor’s control, licenses all who may ask questions at city press conferences? Should a journalist be foolish enough to displease somebody important at City Hall (e.g. by asking “impertinent” questions) an editor will quickly assign somebody else to kiss up to the offended potentate.

New ownership at the U-T will not bring change and SDNN is not about to challenge the established order. That became painfully obvious this week. The faceless manipulators at City Hall will still exert their enormous power.

As I said, this is not new. A good example of how journalists become pawns of City Hall is what happened at South Eastern Development Corporation (SEDC) last year is. Will Carless, a journalist with Voice of San Diego, in answering a question from Tom Fudge on the KPBS radio program “These Days” in June 2008, revealed how it works. Fudge asked Carless why he started investigating certain bonus payments paid to SEDC’s President, Carolyn Smith. Carless revealed that he had received an insider tip.

Voice of San Diego then put Carless on the story full time for months. He doggedly pursued what were undoubtedly unauthorized payments to Smith, who was subsequently fired in disgrace. But was that the whole story? I doubt it. I had uncovered a dubious land deal involving SEDC’s chairman, “Chip” Owen and Jim Waring, the Mayor’s land use Czar at the time...