The Fourth Circuit issued an opinion yesterday in an under-developed area of arbitration law: when are awards “mutual, final, and definite”? This is an important issue because under Section 10(a)(4) of the Federal Arbitration Act, arbitration awards can be vacated if they don’t meet the standard of “mutual, final and, definite.”
In Norfolk Southern Railway
In today’s post, we pick up where the 4th Circuit left off a few weeks ago — with federal circuit courts finding ways to avoid enforcing arbitration agreements that are obtained years after litigation has commenced.
In Dasher v. RBC Bank (USA), __ F3d. ___, 2018 WL 832855 (11th Cir. Feb. 13, 2018), the
The Supreme Court of Nebraska gave an unpleasant surprise to its trial court judges last week: they cannot enforce arbitration agreements sua sponte. Boyd v. Cook, 298 Neb. 819 (Feb. 2, 2018).
The case involved a messy shareholder dispute. A key contract to the dispute contained an arbitration provision covering “any dispute or
In a recent opinion, the Fourth Circuit cited waiver as its basis to refuse to compel arbitration, but the result seems animated by a sense that the arbitration agreements were unenforceable. Degidio v. Crazy Horse Saloon & Restaurant, Inc., __ F.3d __, 2018 WL 456905 (4th Cir. Jan. 18, 2018).
The case involved a
Remember when Maria sang “Let’s start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start”? Well, that seems to be what federal circuit courts are doing with their arbitration decisions recently. This post will run through some Do Re Mis of arbitration law, as articulated by those decisions (and will close with some
Two cases recently fit in one of my favorite categories: those awards that get “un-vacated.” These cases went through arbitration, had that arbitration award vacated by a district court, only to have the award later resurrected by an appellate court. In today’s edition, the whiplash happens in both state and federal court.
In Caffey v.
While I was busy writing deep thoughts about arbitration at the end of 2017 (see here and here), courts around the country rudely kept churning out new arbitration opinions. Hmph. So, I have some catching up to do. I start with one that has most captured my attention, Snow v. Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer &
Whenever people ask me why I choose arbitration law to write and talk about, one of the reasons I give is that the law is in flux, creating a demand for information and analysis. Despite the fact that the Federal Arbitration Act has been around for over 90 years, there are constantly new developments in
2017 was a big year in arbitration law. We went from a country that seemed on the verge of banning arbitration in most consumer and employee contracts to a country whose federal policy embraces arbitration in nearly every context. From my vantage point, here are the ten top developments in the last twelve months:
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Not just because of the chestnuts roasting and mistletoeing, but because it is when the ABA Journal names the best legal blogs. Arbitration Nation made it to the Top 100 list for the sixth year running, and remains the only arbitration blog on the list. Even more