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

The Supreme Court of Nebraska gave an unpleasant surprise to its trial court judges last week: they cannot enforce arbitration agreements sua sponteBoyd 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

The high courts of two states have allowed non-signatories to compel arbitration in recent weeks.  The cases show courts are addressing non-signatory issues using different standards and raise important drafting issues for joint ventures and business affiliates.

In Locklear Automotive Group, Inc. v. Hubbard, 2017 WL 4324852 (Alabama Sept. 29, 2017), the Supreme Court

Just as I predicted, SCOTUS reversed the Kentucky Supreme Court’s decision in Kindred this morning.  The interesting piece, though, is that the seven member majority went out of its way to cut off some of the “on trend” methods that state courts have been using to avoid arbitration clauses.

The Kentucky decision can be

Demonstrating just how difficult it can be to separate questions about the “formation” of an arbitration agreement from the “validity” of that agreement, the Fifth Circuit found this month that when an argument was applied to two of the parties’ three agreements, it related to their formation, but when the same argument was applied to

While the Supreme Court has put off hearing a more contentious arbitration case until the fall (presumably in hopes that it will have nine justices by then), tomorrow it will hear the nursing home arbitration case from Kentucky.  I look forward to listening to the questions and trying to figure out why the Justices granted 

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