Mary was employed by a small cellular phone provider as a sales representative. When she was hired she signed an employment agreement specifying that she would submit any dispute arising out of her employment with the company to arbitration. She developed sever commercial account resulting in the sale of multiple cell phones and service contracts. Once developed, Mary earned an adequate income servicing these accounts and renewing them. However, her employer became concerned that she was not aggressively soliciting new business and so reassigned some of Mary’s large account to another sales representative.
Mary objected to the loss of her largest accounts, but was unable to persuade the company to reverse the work assignment. Consequently, she was forced to seek new business but was only minimally successful in doing so. When her revenues (and accordingly her income) dropped, she was counseled about her job performance and warned about the possibility of termination if her numbers didn’t improve. Uncomfortable with the requirements to arbitrate, Mary proposed to the company that they attempt to mediate their differences and the company agreed.
The mediation was successful. Mary was permitted to resign, the negative comments about her job performance were expunged, she waived her right to arbitrate the dispute, and received a monetary settlement from the company. However, after receiving the settlement Mary began to have second thoughts. She became convinced that the mediator had failed to fully inform her of her rights and had obtained an inadequate monetary settlement. She felt that the mediator could have obtained a better settlement for her.
What remedies might Mary have against the mediator?
What exposures does the company have to a lawsuit?