arbitration

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The Supreme Court issued another arbitration decision today in New Prime v. Oliveira.  And like last week’s decision in Henry Schein, it was unanimous (but Kavanaugh did not participate).  Today’s New Prime decision has two key holdings:  First, it is for courts, and not arbitrators (regardless of any delegation clause) to determine whether…

As we close out 2018, it is a good time to reflect on the year in arbitration law.  Overall, I would characterize the year as another in which everyone was mildly obsessed with class actions, the U.S. Supreme Court again showed its willingness to enforce arbitration agreements of all kinds, and lower courts and groups…

One of the most confounding doctrines in federal arbitration jurisprudence is the severability doctrine.  The U.S. Supreme Court has held, since Prima Paint in 1967, that courts must enforce arbitration clauses within contracts, even if the entire contract is invalid or unenforceable.  (Most non-arbitration geeks don’t believe me when I tell them that’s the law.) …

This post is aimed at drafters of arbitration clauses. Because if you don’t insert an administrator for your arbitration, and don’t anticipate that the administrator may just stop providing services, your arbitration clause is dead in the water. At least, that’s the holding of two new state court cases.

In A-1 Premium Acceptance, Inc. v. …

Every time I think the spate of state supreme court opinions about nursing home arbitration surely must be over, another one comes out to prove me wrong.  Last week, it was one from Alabama, finding an arbitration agreement was never formed, because the resident lacked capacity and the daughter who signed on his behalf…

I would understand if not every state supreme court got the memo from last year’s SCOTUS decision on FAA preemption, Kindred, which reminded state courts that the FAA prevents state courts from imposing additional requirements on arbitration agreements that are not required for other types of contracts.  But Kentucky definitely got the memo.  The…

The First Circuit just faced a fascinating formation issue: if a customer cannot see what she is signing, and no employee reads it to her or ensures she knows there are legal terms, is there a contract?  With Justice Souter sitting by designation on the panel, the court answered “no,” and thereby kept a class…

In today’s post I recount an epic battle between the Rules of Professional Conduct (tagline: saving clients from unscrupulous lawyers for over 100 years!) and the Uniform Arbitration Act (tagline: saving arbitration from hostile judges for 60 years!) in the Supreme Court of California.  Spoiler alert: the Rules of Professional Conduct win.

The story in…