I have saved up six opinions that considered whether to vacate an arbitration award over the summer.* Only one of those opinions vacated the award; the other five confirmed. To get a flavor of what types of arguments are winning and losing motions to vacate, here is a summary of those six.
Vacated
The lone
Sometimes current events provide an occasion perfect storm to educate about arbitration basics. This is one of those occasions.
Here are questions that friends and colleagues storming mad people have asked me in the past day or so, with my best answers:
Two cases recently fit in one of my favorite categories: those awards that get “un-vacated.” These cases went through arbitration, had that arbitration award vacated by a district court, only to have the award later resurrected by an appellate court. In today’s edition, the whiplash happens in both state and federal court.
In Caffey v.
In a decision that is very skinny on the facts, a unanimous Nevada Supreme Court recently un-vacated a significant arbitration award in a dispute over dental franchises. In Half Dental Franchise, LLC v. Houchin, 2017 WL 3326425 (Nev. Aug. 3, 2017), the court found the arbitrators did not exceed their power in exercising authority
So you’ve got an arbitration award, what next? In other types of civil cases, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (Rules) control service, and they have greatly reduced the role of U.S. Marshals in serving parties. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(c). But enter the Federal Arbitration Act § 9 and § 12 (FAA). When
While regular people count down the days to summer blockbusters that come in the form of high-paid actors fighting aliens or robots, I prefer my summer blockbusters in the form of arbitration opinions that have been months in the making (maybe finally released because the clerks are about to turn over?). Today, I report on
The Second Circuit reminded us yesterday that judicial review of arbitration awards is “among the most deferential in the law.” And when district courts are not sufficiently deferential, their decisions are likely to be overturned. That happened recently in Tom Brady’s “deflate-gate” arbitration, and in an arbitration over how much a pedestrian was owed
Recent decisions from the 3d and 11th Circuits drive home this point: an arbitration award is final and should not be revisited.
In Robinson v. Littlefield, 2015 WL 5520017 (3d Cir. Sept. 17, 2015), the parties arbitrated their dispute over the quality of a new RV. The arbitrator ruled for the RV buyers, awarding
Today I present a collection of recent state and federal appellate court decisions that vacate or un-vacate arbitration awards. The seven opinions below emphasize how difficult it is to prove that an arbitrator exceeded his or her power and suggest that the surest way to vacate an arbitration award is still by presenting evidence that
If you won your arbitration, it is vexing to have to spend many thousands more in attorneys’ fees opposing a motion to vacate the arbitration award. (That is especially true if you signed up for arbitration thinking it was faster and avoided appeals.) But, can you ask the court to award you the attorneys’ fees