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Ninth Circuit Says Arbitration Agreements Cannot Restrict Grounds for...
In the Hall Street decision in 2008, SCOTUS held that parties could not contractually enlarge Section 10 of the Federal Arbitration Act by agreeing that a court could vacate the arbitration award for...
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No Federal Presumption of Arbitrability Until Court Finds Valid Arbitration...
A new opinion from the Eleventh Circuit highlights an issue that can be confusing to those encountering FAA case law for the first time: when does the federal presumption of arbitrability apply? The...
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Two Federal Circuits Find Health Insurance Claims Outside Scope of...
Because courts apply a presumption of arbitrability when they analyze whether particular claims fall within the scope of an arbitration clause, and arbitration clauses are generally drafted very...
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Appellate Courts Saving Arbitration Agreements Right and Left
In recent weeks, four federal and state appellate courts have vacated district court decisions that denied motions to compel arbitration. The courts seem to be saying to defendants with arbitration...
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ArbitrationNation’s Third Anniversary Threesome
This week marks the third anniversary of this blog devoted to interpretations of the Federal Arbitration Act. (Here’s the first post.) After 155 posts, can there possibly be more to say? Yes,...
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Rare Claim Falls Outside Arbitration Agreement, Creates Piecemeal Litigation
Because of the strong federal policy favoring arbitration, and cases providing that any doubt about the scope of an arbitration agreement must be resolved in favor of arbitration, it is uncommon to...
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6th Circuit Holds that Accountants Conducting Financial Arbitration Can Also...
A new case from the Sixth Circuit addresses whether accountants who are resolving a dispute about payments made under an agreement can also make legal determinations about the same agreement. In a 2-1...
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When Can A Party Recover Attorneys’ Fees Incurred Confirming An Arbitration...
If you won your arbitration, it is vexing to have to spend many thousands more in attorneys’ fees opposing a motion to vacate the arbitration award. (That is especially true if you signed up for...
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Fifth Circuit Finds Parties Can Authorize Arbitrators By Their Conduct
The Fifth Circuit un-vacated an arbitration award last week, holding the district court had wrongly concluded that the court was the proper decision-maker on contract formation. Although courts are...
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Arbitration Fireworks: Three Federal Circuits Refuse To Compel Arbitration
Three federal appellate courts recently affirmed lower courts’ refusal to compel arbitration. These cases show that the federal policy favoring arbitration is not absolute – the parties must have...
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Sign O’ The Times: SCOTUS Denies Cert In Franchise Arbitration Dispute
On Monday of this week, after stringing the parties along for five months, SCOTUS denied cert in a case involving the intersection between arbitration and franchise regulation. The petition was filed...
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Fishermen Avoid Being Caught In Arbitration’s Net
What are the defining characteristics of an arbitration agreement? The dissent in a new 9th Circuit case took on that vexing issue, while the majority sidestepped it altogether while refusing to compel...
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Three Blockbuster Summer Arbitration Decisions
While regular people count down the days to summer blockbusters that come in the form of high-paid actors fighting aliens or robots, I prefer my summer blockbusters in the form of arbitration opinions...
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Kardashians Kept Out of Arbitration (and other recent arbitration news)
Just three weeks into the year and already my pile of arbitration cases is a skyscraper! So, I will cover a lot of ground in this update. First, the headline. Kimberly, Kourtney, and Khloe Kardashian...
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10th Circuit Resolves One Arbitrability Circuit Split, But Creates Another
If you are a party that wants courts to rigidly enforce delegation clauses – sending questions about even the validity of the agreement to arbitration – then you will appreciate a new decision from the...
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Lessons From Two Auto Dealer Arbitrations About Nonsignatories
In two recent decisions, the Alabama Supreme Court made clear that if an arbitration clause specifies it only applies to disputes between the two parties who sign the clause, that will be strictly...
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Third Parties Fail To Force Arbitration in Three Circuits
The “Summer of Arbitration” draws to a close tomorrow, if you can believe it. (On the first day of fall, it is supposed to be 91 degrees in Minnesota. Yikes.) But before I close that chapter, let’s...
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The Arbitration Resistance May Look Like This… (Post #300)
What happens when state courts disagree with SCOTUS’s interpretation of the Federal Arbitration Act? They resist, and they have a thousand different ways of doing so. The Mississippi Supreme Court...
View ArticleState Supreme Courts Falling In Line On Arbitration
Despite how often I talk about whack-a-mole and the tug-of-war between the state courts and SCOTUS on arbitration, the truth is that the majority of state supreme courts follow SCOTUS’s arbitration...
View ArticleSpring State Court Smorgasbord: Three Decisions Hostile To Arbitration
The focus today is recent state appellate court decisions on arbitration. Because there are an awful lot of them, I am going to divide them roughly into those that are pro arbitration, and those that...
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