A resource for litigators, in-house counsel, and arbitrators
Welcome to 2020!
I hope that you all had a safe and rejuvenating holiday season. A new decade brings us plenty of new opportunities for thrilling arbitration news and developments!
But, up first, more on class arbitrability. I know. I know. So last decade. But trust me, this is a case you want to keep…
Happy August! What’s a better way to start the month than thinking about class arbitrability! Again. Ugh.
Trust me, I would much rather consider so many other exciting arbitration issues, but this one seems to be occupying a lot of court attention, so I’d be remiss not to report on it.
Since my last update,…
The Fifth Circuit just deepened (and confused) a Circuit split over the question of who decides whether an arbitration agreement permits class proceedings. See 20/20 Communications, Incorporated v. Crawford, 2019 WL 3281412 (5th Cir. July 22, 2019).
Liz has written about the split here, here, and here. (You might also recall…
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.) …
In an opinion that coins new terms and uses the insouciant tone of a blogger, the 11th Circuit just shut down a putative class action brought by homeowners against a vendor of roof shingles. The Court found that the terms and conditions printed on the exterior of the shingle packaging formed an enforceable contract (with…
The Seventh Circuit issued an opinion last week that sounded like it would be a big deal. The case, Herrington v. Waterstone Mortgage Corp., 2018 WL 5116905 (7th Cir. Oct. 22, 2018), dealt with the fallout from SCOTUS’s Epic Systems, and addressed a class arbitrability issue of first impression, which meant it could…
Usually the plaintiffs in a class action want to stay out of arbitration, but in the recent case of JPAY v. Kobel, 2018 WL 4472207 (11th Cir. Sept. 19, 2018), it was the class representatives who were fighting for arbitration. In particular, they wanted the arbitrator to decide whether they could have a class…
I have been making my way through the rest of the May arbitration cases (the photo shows how high my stack got), and one thing that stands out is this: I was right. Delegation clauses remain a hot topic in arbitration law.
Three recent cases demonstrate the power of having a delegation clause in…
Today the Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari in another case involving the Federal Arbitration Act. The case, Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela, comes from the Ninth Circuit and raises a variation of the question from Sutter: how clear does an arbitration agreement need to be to show the parties authorized…
Two different panels of the Second Circuit issued opinions about class arbitration on the same day last week. One creates a circuit split over how specific parties must be to delegate the availability of class arbitration to arbitrators, and the second addresses when bankruptcy law can preempt the federal arbitration act.
In Wells Fargo Advisors…