Lease Arbitration Clause and Rights to Sue a Landlord

Lease Arbitration Clause and Rights to Sue a LandlordLease Arbitration Clause and Rights to Sue a LandlordMany residential and commercial leases contain an arbitration clause that will come into effect if tzu siche is a lawsuit. If either party in a lease agreement breaches the agreement each party has the right to sue the other. However, these rights and other legal remedies may be limited by the terms contained in the arbitration clause of the lease itself. For example, if your lease contains a mediation or an arbitration clause, you may be required to seek arbitration before being allowed to file a civil claim.Some arbitration clauses are binding and prohibit your right to file a lawsuit against your landlord. When to Consider Suing If you do sue your landlord, the matter will be handled in civil court. Civil cases are easier to prove than criminal cases, but you still should consider hiring an attorney who specializes in business law or tenant-landlord relations. You canleid sue your landlord just because you do not like him/her or have a minor grievance. To hold your landlord accountable for something he/she has to have breached your agreement or caused you or your business harm in some way. There are some exceptions. If you tripped and were seriously injured on a commercial property due to the negligence of the landlord or property owner (i.e., the owner/landlord failed to remove ice or snow or repair substantial cracks in a sidewalk) you may still be able to file a personal injury claim. This type of personal injury claim- known as premises liability- is also handled in civil court is unrelated to the terms of your lease agreement and can be filed by anyone injured on an owners property whether or not they were leasing space. Limitations on the Rights to Sue It is fairly common for agreements, including commercial and residential leases, to contain arbitration or mediation clauses. This means you agree that if there is a dispute between you and t he landlord you will first try to resolve the conflict outside of court. This is usually a good thing for both the tenant and the landlord as long as it does not state that you totally forfeit your rights to sue if an agreement cannot be reached. These clauses should name a specific mediation or arbitration company - not an individual. The arbitrator should be neutral and not someone affiliated with the landlord or their representative who will serve only the best interest of the landlord. Even if your lease does contain an arbitration or mediation clause, you should still consult an attorney before attempting to resolve the conflict on your own.In some cases, if a landlord was negligent in some significant way, you may still be able to pursue a civil claim, and even with a mediator, chances are good that your landlord will still show up with an attorney. Suing Is Not a Path to Riches It is important to understand that if your landlord breaches your lease agreement you generally cannot sue for tort damages (i.e., what laypeople commonly refer to as pain and suffering.) Only in the case of certain types of conduct or bad faith is there a possibility of suing a landlord for tort damages. You would have to prove that the actions of your landlord caused you some sort of harm (or, a tort.)Otherwise, you most likely can only either get out of a lease or be awarded reimbursement for costs you had to shell out that your landlord was required to pay for repairs or improvements. Even then, there may be limitations if you acted without giving your landlord a reasonable time to fix a problem.In other words, your landlord is protected against you taking matters into your own hands to fix or alter something on the property and then simply insisting the landlord reimburse you for the expense. Suing your landlord is rarely profitable (you wont be awarded millions for your troubles), but you may be able to get reimbursement for certain expenses, or refunds on rent, or have the lease rescinded so you can move your business somewhere else. Only Sign Leases You Understand It is important that you never sign a lease with the idea that if there is trouble, you can just take a bad landlord to court and win. It is always better to sign an agreement you understand and are comfortable with and only with a landlord you feel you can trust. If you are not familiar with the terms of your lease, dont trust your landlord to explain them to you.In fact, the landlord might not even understand all the terms and it is not an attorney who can represent your interests. If you have questions, talk with your own lawyer, or someone who is familiar with commercial leasing that is not associated with the property owner or landlord. When it comes to leasing, the term buyer beware applies as renter beware.The best way to protect yourself from getting stuck in a long-term lease is to get legal advice before you sign on the dotted line.

Should Employers Play `Big Brother with Your Health

Should Employers Play Big Brother with Your HealthEmployers and Your HealthShould Employers Play Big Brother with Your HealthPicture this On one side of the table, you have a well qualified, personable, impeccably dressed and thoroughly prepared candidate who has come in for an interview. The only apparent flaws? Hes quite overweight and, tucked inside the pocket of his shirt is a pack of cigarettes.On the other side of the table is the hiring manager for this demanding, critical job at a busy company that expects a high level of productivity from everyone, many of whom work 50 hours a week or more.So heres your quandary Does the hiring manager hire him even though the demands of the job might affect the candidates health and drag down productivity? Or are his weight and smoking habit enough to make them turn to someone else whos a bit less qualified but appears to be a lot healthier?I got to thinking about this after reading a recent news release from Hewitt Associates, a human reso urces services provider, amid the backdrop of national concern over obesity and the rising cost of health care in the United States. The upshot from the survey? Eighty-eight percent of 500 surveyed companies plan to invest in longer-term solutions aimed at improving the health and productivity of their workforces over the next three to five years. Thats up from 63% in a similar survey conducted in 2007.But Hewitt concludes that employees are not so convinced their employers need to get more involved In a separate survey of 30,000 employees, only 12% believe companies have a role in helping them understand how to stay healthy. Employers need to overcome employees skepticism about their intended role, concludes Jim Winkler, who leads Hewitts Health Management Consulting practice. (The employers) messages need to shift from a cost management focus to one that helps employees understand how improving their health can benefit them, as well as the company.Thatll take a lot of work on the part of companies, but I doubt it has much chance of success. While Americans often complain that the powers that be especially those in government never do enough to ease any burdens theyre bearing, specifically those linked with economics, they also dont want to find themselves under the watchful eye or crushing thumb of anything much larger than themselves that is, government and business. The general attitude goes like this If were overweight or addicted to cigarettes, we can handle it ourselves.Theres nothing wrong with that. After all, its part of our American birthright to have the freedom and personal liberty to handle most of our own affairs, as opposed to having a company play Big Brother and force us into choices we dont want to make. That approach is more inclined to engender resentment and suspicion about the companys motives (like saving on health insurance premiums). But like our overweight, cigarette-smoking candidate above, some of us may require a little nudge, es pecially if it means saving some of your money or all of your life.

The comfort trap Why the pursuit of an easier life creates a harder one

The comfort trap Why the pursuit of an easier life creates a harder one The comfort trap Why the pursuit of an easier life creates a harder one Over 10,000 years ago, humans thrived and co-existed with nature.Humans fed themselves by hunting wild animals and gathering plants. Plants flourished and animals bred with one another as nature permitted them to do so.Nature was left alone. There was no intervention or manipulation of the natural order of things.But, this all changed around 9500-8500 BC.During this period known as the Agricultural Revolution, humans began to intervene with nature and manipulate the natural breeding process of plants and animals.Seeds were sown and watered, sheep were placed in meadows and pastures for grazing and animals were forced to participate in selective breeding.Humans believed that this new way of living would make it easier to provide food to the population, and thus live a better life.Map of the world showing approximate centers of origin and spread of agriculture during the Agricultural Revolution. Image by Joe Roe [CC BY-SA 3.0], from Wikimedia Commons.The vicious cycle of ease and hards hipIn the best-selling book,  Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind  (audiobook), world renown historian, Yuval Noah Harari, describes the early periods of the agricultural revolution:“With the move to permanent villages and the increase in food supply, the population began to grow. Giving up the nomadic lifestyle enabled women to have a child every year. Babies were weaned at an earlier age â€" they could be fed on porridge and gruel.” [1]But, Noah Harari notes that this pursuit of an easier life led to unintended consequences:“The extra hands were sorely needed in the fields. But the extra mouths quickly wiped out the food surpluses, so even more fields had to be planted. As people began living in disease-ridden settlements, as children fed more on cereals and less on mother’s milk, and as each child competed for his or her porridge with more and more siblings, child mortality soared.”At the time at least one out of every three children died before living till the age of twenty years old. [2]Despite the rapid rise in the mortality rate of the population, its birth rate continued to rise even faster. And several generations later, humans had become dependent on farming for survival.Humans left behind a life of hunting and gathering in a well-sized healthy population for a life of farming and breeding in a rapidly growing, disease-ridden population with high death rates.By the time humans realized that the Agricultural Revolution had failed to live up to its promise of an easier life, it was too late to turn back.They were caught in a trap - the comfort trap.In the pursuit of an easier life, humans had unexpectedly created a harder one, as more people were kept alive but under worse conditions than before.Humans did not foresee that birth rates would rise so quickly or that the increase in wheat consumption would lead to the spread of deadly diseases and high mortality.They did not foresee that their profitable farms and fields would attract more da ngerous threats into their society, including sophisticated intruders, wars and thefts.Fast forward 10,000 years and humans have learned from the mistakes of the Agricultural Revolution. They’ve escaped the comfort trap and today, live a better life.Or did history repeat itself again?The ease of ineffectivenessToday, more so than ever - due to the advancement of technology and sciences - humans are moving at breakneck speed to discover quicker and easier ways to live.For example, a few decades ago, it took an effort to send a message to a loved one, friend or colleague. Messages were letters, handwritten with an ink pen on paper. After writing, people would drop the letter in a mailbox and wait several days or even months to receive a response.And when a reply letter, say from a loved one, was delivered to the sender’s doorstep, it was read carefully with excitement and appreciation for its delivery.Not so in today’s digital era.From the tips of our fingers, we can send and receive a reply within seconds from a friend living on the opposite end of the globe.Gone are the days of messages written with careful thought behind each written word. Nowadays, people send the first thing that comes to mind. Emails, text messages and tweets are rushed and sent on impulse without much consideration for the recipient.Back then, we’d sort through a handful of letters each month, but today, we’re bombarded every day with hundreds of messages from people who expect a prompt reply, even when their demands aren’t urgent.Instant messaging and emails were supposed to make communication easier, but have they?For most of us, virtual communication has become a source of overwhelm, stress and distraction from effective work.We feel like we’re on a hamster wheel of busyness and can’t find enough time to get things done and focus on what matters most.But that’s not all.The rise of technology and the decline of well-beingThe pursuit of an easier life through technolo gy has led to the creation of more complex problems that span across every single area of our lives.Here are some examples.Social media was created to make it easier for people to stay connected, yet we’ve never felt so disconnected, lonely and isolated from one other than today. [3]The internet was created to make it easier to store and retrieve information, yet it has created the safety risks of data privacy breaches, identity theft, cyber bullying, online predators, inappropriate content for children and online addictions.Dating apps were created to make it easier to find love and a life partner, yet it’s never been harder in human history for man and woman to come together and find true love.Electronic devices - like the computer and mobile phone - were created to make communication easier, yet nowadays, families spend their downtime together either watching TV, texting on mobile phones and using the internet on laptops, instead of communicating with one another.The modern office was created to make it easier for workers to stay productive, yet employees spend the majority of their workday sat on a chair, slouched over a desk in front of a computer, increasing the risks of obesity, heart diseases and brain damage. [4]We believed that technology would make life easier, but has it? Can we say with confidence that citizens of developed countries, who have access to the most advanced technology, live a happier and healthier life than those living in developing countries?So far, our dependency on technology has created more problems - some even worse than before - and a harder life in many ways.But, how can we revert back to the old way of living when the world has moved on? How can we escape the comfort trap to live a better life?Graph showing the decline in happiness of USA citizens since 1990, despite the real GDP per capita growth of about 30 percent. (Source: World Happiness Report)Embrace hardshipOver a 100 years ago, philosopher, Friedrich Nietzs che said “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.”A 100 plus years later, Nietzsche’s words still ring true.Various studies have shown that people who experience and overcome adverse events- business failures, divorce, death of a loved one, difficult work- develop the necessary  mental toughness  required to overcome future adverse events. They also experience improved mental health, well-being and overall life satisfaction. [5]In everyday life we’re faced with the decision to either embrace hardship or avoid it.We have a choice to either send a lengthy email reply or set up a phone call, to either send a long thread of tweets or text  messages to friends or plan a meetup in person, to either drive a mile to a destination or walk instead.And whilst the easier choices are convenient and save time in the short-term, the harder ones save more time and create more rewarding benefits over the long run.In the same spirit, we could embrace the hardship of pursuing our goals .If you’re an entrepreneur, embrace the hardship of spending a ton of time, energy and money building a product that fails.Embrace the unpredictable flow of income and the uncertain future of your business.Embrace the loneliness and pain of sacrificing time that could’ve been spent with family and friends.If you’re a writer or artist, embrace the hardship of failures and rejections of your proposals.Embrace the struggles with procrastination and creative blocks.Embrace the fear of  criticism  and self-doubt of your creative work.If you’re trying to lose weight and get in shape, embrace the hardship of regular exercise, counting calories and  eating healthy meals  each day, even when  you don’t have the motivation  to do so.Embrace the lack of support and criticism from your friends, family and colleagues.Embrace the long wait of several months before you reap the rewards of your efforts and notice visible changes in your body shape.By embracing hardship, we create new oppo rtunities to become better at what we do, gain valuable wisdom and live a better life.The joys of hardshipThere’s an ancient Chinese saying “Chi Ku Shi Fu,” which means “Eating Bitterness is Good Fortune.”In other words, embracing hardship and unpleasant experiences today, instead of pursuing easier ones, will lead to a better life tomorrow.No matter how hard your life is today, don’t give up. Resist the temptation to pursue an easier life, embrace hardship and escape the comfort trap.There’s light at the end of the tunnel of hardship - a lifetime of joy and fulfillment.Mayo Oshin writes at  MayoOshin.Com, where he shares the best practical ideas based on proven science and the habits of highly successful people for stress-free productivity and improved mental performance. To get these strategies to stop procrastinating, get more things by doing less and improve your focus,  join his free weekly newsletter.”A version of this  article  originally appeared at  mayoosh in.com  as  â€œThe Comfort Trap: Why the Pursuit of an Easier Life Creates a Harder One (And What to Do Instead).”Footnotes Thanks to  Yuval Noah Harari, historian and author of  Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,  for sharing the history of the agricultural revolution. Alain Bideau et al,  Infant and child mortality in the past  (Oxford : Claredon Press, 1997) Yi Lin, Liu Sidani, Jaime Shensa, Ariel Radovic, Ana Miller, Elizabeth B Colditz, Jason Hoffman, Beth M Giles, Leila Primack, Brian. (2016).  Association between Social Media Use and Depression among U.S. Young Adults. Depression and anxiety. 33. 10.1002/da.22466. Owen N, Healy GN, Matthews CE, Dunstan DW.  Too much sitting: the population-health science of sedentary behavior. Exerc Sport Sci Rev. 2010; 38(3):105â€"13. Seery, M. D., Holman, E. A., Silver, R. C. (2010).  Whatever does not kill us: Cumulative lifetime adversity, vulnerability, and resilience.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99(6), 1025-1041. Croft, A., Dunn, E.W., Quoidbach, J. (2014)  From tribulations to appreciation: Experiencing adversity in the past predicts greater savoring in the present.Social Psychological and Personality Science,5, 511-516. The argument in this article isn’t one for the elimination of the use of technology, rather it argues for the reduction of dependency on it. An extensive  study  of 34 countries found that there’s no link between the increase in the economic growth of a country and the well-being or happiness of the citizens of that country.