MATTHEW F. KENNELLY, United States District Judge
Defendant McDonald's Corporation, joined by defendant Simon Marketing, Inc., has moved to reconsider the Court's January 14, 2002 ruling denying defendants' motions to stay the proceedings and compel arbitration. That ruling was premised on our finding that the arbitration procedure provided for in the parties' contract was prohibitively expensive, thus rendering the arbitration provision unenforceable. The contract (actually the rules of certain of the promotional games involved in this lawsuit) incorporated the rules of the American Arbitration Association, and those rules, we found, would have required Popovich to pay an exorbitant fee to arbitrate this case.
McDonald's has now offered to pay the arbitration fees to the extent they exceed those provided for by the AAA's Consumer Rules, which were reasonable but which, we found, did not apply to Popovich's claim. This is not a basis for reconsideration of the Court's ruling. We agree with Popovich that McDonald's offer, which is inconsistent with the parties' contract, amounts to an offer for a new contract. Popovich is under no obligation to accept McDonald's offer, and the Court is in no position to impose it. As a matter of elementary contract law, McDonald's cannot unilaterally modify the existing agreement. See, e.g., Channel v. Citicorp., 89 F.3d 379, 384 (7th Cir. 1996); Ellman v. Ianni, 21 Ill. App.3d 353, 362, 157 N.E.2d 807, 813 (1959). The offer is logically indistinguishable from an offer by a defendant in a case for breach of a contract without an arbitration requirement to submit the case to arbitration. In those circumstances, as in the present case, a Court would have no basis to require the plaintiff to forego judicial remedies and arbitrate the case. The same is true here. Like the Eleventh Circuit in Perez v. Globe Airport Security Services, Inc., 253 F.3d 1280, 1287 (11th Cir. 2001). we will not remake the parties' agreement to include a provision requiring arbitration if McDonald's agrees to pay the expenses. Contrary to defendant's argument, this ease is not controlled by this Court's ruling in Phillips v. Associates Home Equity Services, Inc., 179 F. Supp.2d 840 (N.D. Ill. 2001), in which, after first declining to enforce an arbitration provision due to prohibitive expense, we then compelled arbitration after the defendant offered to pay the fee. In Phillips, the arbitration provision specifically contemplated that the defendant would pay the fees if requested to do so. See id. at 843. No similar provision appears in the contract here; the contract incorporates the AAA rules, which impose upon Popovich the fees in question. Finally, our decision in Kennedy v. Conseco Finance Corp., No. 00 C 4399, 2000 WL 1760943 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 30, 2000), a pre-Green Tree ruling, is not binding in the present case.
In the Court's prior ruling, we concluded that the AAA's Consumer Rules did not apply because of the value of Popovich's claim. McDonald's had contended that the claim was worth less than $10,000 (thus rendering the Consumer Rules applicable), but we rejected this argument. In its motion to reconsider, McDonald's argues that we erroneously relied on what we found to be an inconsistent position that it had taken regarding the potential value of the plaintiffs' claims in cases essentially indistinguishable from that of Popovich. First, that finding was not essential to the decision; Popovich met his burden of showing that his claim did not fall within the scope of the Consumer Rules. But secondly, we do not agree with McDonald's argument that its positions were not inconsistent. In this regard, McDonald's current motion essentially says nothing new, so we need not address the particulars of its argument.
For these reasons, the Court denies defendants' motions to reconsider [docket items 34-1 35-1].