Validity of Arbitration Agreement

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The Ninth, Sixth, and Third Circuits all recently issued decisions about whether putative class or collective actions could proceed despite the existence of arbitration clauses.  In two of those decisions, the courts found the arbitration agreements did not allow for class arbitration and therefore dismissed the claims.  In the third, the court found the arbitration…

Three state supreme courts tackled arbitration law in recent weeks: Alabama, North Carolina, and Rhode Island.  Rhode Island reversed a construction arbitration award because it disagreed with the arbitrator’s analysis.  North Carolina found that an arbitration agreement in a doctor-patient setting was unenforceable as a breach of the doctor’s fiduciary duty.  And Alabama strictly enforced…

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 moved to compel arbitration, although they were not signatories to the arbitration agreement.  Kroma Makeup EU v. Boldface Licensing +…

In a fight over whether a single lending transaction involved interstate commerce, the Supreme Court of Nebraska found the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) applied and preempted its state arbitration act.  Wilczewski v. Charter West Nat’l Bank, __ N.W.2d__ (Neb. Dec. 9, 2016).

The case involved buyers who purchased a home from a bank (who…

On October 28, the Supreme Court granted a cert petition in a case in which the Kentucky Supreme Court refused to enforce arbitration agreements in nursing home agreements.  (Kentucky recently topped my list of states hostile to arbitration precisely because of the language in the decision that will be reviewed…)

In Kindred Nursing Centers Limited…

The Supreme Court of Louisiana refuses to send customers who were injured while playing at Sky Zone to arbitration, finding that the arbitration clause “is adhesionary and therefore unenforceable”.  Duhon v. Activelaf, LLC, __ So. 3d __, 2016 WL 6123820 (La. Oct. 19 2016); Alicea v. Activelaf, LLC, __ So. 3d __, 2016…

Within the U.S. Government, the CFPB has gotten most of the attention for trying to regulate consumer arbitration.  But this month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) are bumping the CFPB out of the arbitration regulation spotlight.  In particular, the CMS issued a rule that will prohibit the use of pre-dispute arbitration…

Lest anyone think that the preemption doctrine in arbitration has gone dormant, today’s cases should set the record straight.  Courts have recently found the FAA preempted state rules in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Alabama.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that one of its rules of civil procedure was preempted by the FAA in Taylor v…