The Indiana Supreme Court will hear oral argument May 8 in a dispute over public access to county death records. The case, Evansville Courier & Press v. Vanderburgh County Health Department, raises the issue of whether a county health department’s death certificates, including the cause of death, are public records under the Indiana Access to Public Records Act.
In the first part of this column, I outlined the advantages and disadvantages of arbitration as an alternative to litigation in court and concluded that neither arbitration nor litigation is preferable in all situations. This second part provides more specific suggestions on when to use arbitration in certain high-risk, “bet-the-company” situations.
In my world of dispute resolution, one of the most basic questions is whether a particular business dispute should be resolved in arbitration or in a court of law. Like many of the questions I am frequently asked by clients, there is no simple answer that fits all occasions and situations.