Federal Arbitration Act

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While state courts have been busy articulating novel interpretations of arbitration law this summer, federal courts seem intent on getting back to basics.  In recent weeks, federal appellate courts have reminded parties who has the burden of proving an agreement to arbitrate, what should happen to the case when arbitration gets compelled, how parties waive…

Continuing last week’s theme of “States Gone Wild,” here are three more oddball summer decisions from state supreme courts. All of them find interesting paths around federal case law (IMHO).

Georgia Says Class Complaint Is Deemed Arbitration Opt Out For All Class Members

In Bickerstaff v. SunTrust Bank, 2016 WL 3693778 (Ga. July 8,…

Justice Scalia wrote some blockbuster decisions about arbitration, enforcing arbitration agreements regardless of their real-world impact, and making a potentially dry topic exciting and contentious.  Readers of his opinions knew from the first few paragraphs of the analysis how the case was coming out.  If he was bench-slapping a lower court for its interpretation of…

Most questions of arbitrability can be resolved on motion, using a summary judgment-like standard.  However, just like summary judgment, if there are genuine disputes of material fact about whether a claim must be arbitrated — like competing evidence about whether the parties ever formed an arbitration agreement — those should be determined by a trial. …

Arbitration case law did not break any new ground in 2015.  Instead, a larger sector of the public became aware of the ground already broken in 2011 and 2013, as well as how common arbitration is in professional sports.

Let’s review some of the attention-grabbing arbitration headlines of 2015.  There was:

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Before I can sum up 2015 in arbitration (next post!), I need to report on some new cases coming out of the federal and state appellate courts in recent weeks.  Two are just good reminders of basic arbitration law, but the third addresses an interesting question of double recovery.

Our first “reminder” case comes from…