Consumer Arbitrations with The American Arbitration Association 2009 to Present

This website reposts data previously posted on the American Arbitration Association's website: https://www.adr.org/consumer. The AAA describes the data on their website: "The AAA maintains an online Consumer Arbitration Statistics report based on consumer cases filed with the AAA for at least the last five years. This report is made available pursuant to state statutes such as the California Code of Civil Procedure §1281.96 and Maryland Commercial Law §§ 14-3901 to 3905 and updated quarterly, as required by law."

In practice, each time the AAA adds the latest quarter of data, it takes down the earliest quarter. This website aids researchers by retaining the data each quarter in exactly the format in which it was originally posted. We are retaining and posting this data because we have found it useful in trying to understand the effect of mandates for consumers to arbitrate.

Caveats are in order. A first limitation of the data is the absence of access to the underlying materials, which are held privately. As the AAA explains, it does not independently verify what arbitrators report to it. A second problem is that coding errors can occur at both individual and aggregate levels. For example, when researching consumer arbitration between 2015 and 2016, we identified sixty-two cases in the set that were described as seeking the same amount ($607,525.40) and in which each consumer was listed as having received the same award ($585.71). AAA research staff responded to our inquiries, identified a computer coding error affecting these cases as well as other cases, and posted corrected data. But no red flags told other researchers that the data had been corrected. Thus, a vivid example of a potential error may be found through culling thousands of entries and then seeking clarification, but the general public has no systematic method of checking the accuracy of the data posted by AAA.

Several authors have used this data, see, e.g., David Horton & Andrea Cann Chandrasekher, After the Revolution: An Empirical Study of Consumer Arbitration, 104 Geo. L.J. 57 (2015); Judith Resnik, Diffusing Disputes: The Public in the Private of Arbitration, the Private in Courts, and the Erasure of Rights, 124 Yale L.J. 2804 (2015).

Another site that has usable AAA data is Level Playing Field (http://levelplayingfield.io), and there could be other sites as well. If you have ideas about or corrections to this data please email [e-mail]. Thanks are due to the Yale Law Library for their help conceiving and constructing this website.

本网站转载了美国仲裁协会（American Arbitration Association, AAA）网站上先前发布的资料：https://www.adr.org/consumer。美国仲裁协会在其网站上对数据进行了如下描述：“美国仲裁协会基于至少过去五年内向其提交的消费者仲裁案件，维护了一份在线消费者仲裁统计数据报告。根据加利福尼亚州民事程序法第1281.96条和马里兰州商业法第14-3901至3905条等州法律的规定，本报告定期更新。”

在实践中，每当美国仲裁协会添加最新的季度数据时，它都会删除最早的季度数据。本网站通过保留每个季度数据的原始发布格式，帮助研究人员。我们保留和发布这些数据，是因为我们发现它们在尝试理解消费者仲裁强制令的影响方面非常有用。

需要注意的是，该数据存在一些局限性。首先，由于基础材料为私人持有，因此无法获取。正如美国仲裁协会所解释的，它不会独立核实仲裁员向其报告的内容。其次，个体和整体层面都可能发生编码错误。例如，在研究2015年至2016年之间的消费者仲裁时，我们发现集合中存在62起案件，这些案件被描述为寻求相同的金额（607,525.40美元），并且每位消费者都被列为获得了相同的赔偿（585.71美元）。美国仲裁协会的研究人员对我们提出的疑问进行了回应，确定了一个影响这些案件以及其他案件的计算机编码错误，并发布了更正后的数据。但没有任何红旗提示其他研究人员数据已被更正。因此，通过筛选数千条记录并寻求澄清，可以发现一个潜在错误的生动例子，但公众没有系统性的方法来检查美国仲裁协会发布数据的准确性。

多位作者已经使用了这些数据，例如大卫·霍顿（David Horton）和安德烈亚·坎·钱德拉谢卡拉（Andrea Cann Chandrasekher）的《革命之后：消费者仲裁的实证研究》（After the Revolution: An Empirical Study of Consumer Arbitration，104 Geo. L.J. 57，2015年）；朱迪思·雷斯尼克（Judith Resnik）的《分歧扩散：仲裁的公共领域、法院中的私人领域以及权利的抹除》（Diffusing Disputes: The Public in the Private of Arbitration, the Private in Courts, and the Erasure of Rights，124 Yale L.J. 2804，2015年）。

另一个提供可用AAA数据的网站是水平竞技场（Level Playing Field，http://levelplayingfield.io），可能还有其他网站。如果您有关于或更正这些数据的想法，请通过[e-mail]发送电子邮件。感谢耶鲁法学院图书馆在构思和构建本网站方面的帮助。