2014)

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A lot of interesting arbitration law was made this year, on topics from validity to vacatur, but the banner issue was arbitrator authority.  SCOTUS announced that theme for the year with its BG Group decision in March and federal and state courts around the country ran with it.  [Warning: this post is a doozy.  Get…

In a victory for advocates who worry that the odds are impossibly stacked against consumers in some arbitral fora, the Seventh Circuit found that a class of borrowers did not have to proceed with arbitration conducted by the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe (“Tribe”) in South Dakota “because the arbitral mechanism specified in the agreement is…

This week the Supreme Court of California held that the FAA preempts California’s 2007 Gentry ruling, one that protected employees from nearly all class action waivers in arbitration agreements.  Iskanian v. CLS Transp. Los Angeles, LLC, __ P.3d__, 2014 WL 2808963 (Cal. June 23, 2014).  However, asserting its Californian-ness, the court found an clever…

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 answer is the presumption only applies to whether the scope of an arbitration agreement is broad enough to encompass the parties’ dispute,…